Imamat 21:1-4

Rules for the Priests

21:1 The Lord said to Moses: “Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron – say to them, ‘For a dead person ¹  no priest ²  is to defile himself among his people, ³  21:2 except for his close relative who is near to him: ⁴  his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, 21:3 and his virgin sister who is near to him, ⁵  who has no husband; he may defile himself for her. 21:4 He must not defile himself as a husband among his people so as to profane himself. ⁶ 

[21:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 19:28 above and the literature cited there).

[21:1]  ² tn Heb “no one,” but “priest” has been used in the translation to clarify that these restrictions are limited to the priests, not to the Israelites in general (note the introductory formula, “say to the priests, the sons of Aaron”).

[21:1]  ³ tc The MT has “in his peoples,” but Smr, LXX, Syriac, Targum, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “in his people,” referring to the Israelites as a whole.

[21:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “except for his flesh, the one near to him.”

[21:3]  ⁵ tn Cf. v. 2a.

[21:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “He shall not defile himself a husband in his peoples, to profane himself.” The meaning of the line is disputed, but it appears to prohibit a priest from burying any relative by marriage (as opposed to the blood relatives of vv. 2-3), including his wife (compare B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 142-43 with J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 343, 348).