Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Leviticus · About this commentary
Who May Eat the Holy Things
Leviticus 22:1-16
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
The priests' food is restricted to their household, and the widowed daughter who comes home is put back on the list.
The chapter regulates who eats from the offerings, and its rules are about household rather than merit.
A priest who is unclean may not eat until he has bathed and the sun has set Leviticus 22:6–7. The bar applies to the officiant as readily as to anyone, and it lifts on the same terms.
Then the boundaries of the household. A guest staying with a priest and a hired servant may not eat Leviticus 22:10 — they are visitors, and the food belongs to the family that has no other income. But a slave purchased by his money eats, and so does anyone born in his house Leviticus 22:11.
That distinction is worth reading carefully, because it cuts against expectation. The employee, who is free, does not eat; the slave, who is not, does. The line is drawn by permanence — a hired man goes home at the end of the season, and a bought servant belongs to the household indefinitely, so he is fed from what feeds it.
A priest's daughter who marries outside the priestly families loses the right Leviticus 22:12. She has joined another household, and her husband's land supports her.
And then the provision that shows the reasoning: if a priest's daughter is a widow, or divorced, and has no child, and has returned to her father's house as in her youth, she may eat of her father's bread Leviticus 22:13.
The three conditions describe the most precarious position a woman could occupy in that world. Widowed or divorced, without a son to support her, back under her father's roof — she is restored to the list she left. The phrase as in her youth does the work: the household takes her back as though she had never gone.
A man who eats a holy thing by mistake makes restitution and adds the fifth part Leviticus 22:14, which is the same rate the trespass offering used Leviticus 5:16. The remedy for an accident is repayment, not punishment.
And the reason given for the whole chapter is protective of the people rather than the priests: they must not profane the holy things of the children of Israel Leviticus 22:15. The offerings belong to those who brought them.
settled What this mark means