Commentary - Leviticus 22:1-9

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of Leviticus, God is laying down the ground rules for how His priests, the sons of Aaron, are to handle the holy things. The central question of Leviticus is this: how can a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people? The answer is that He makes a way, and that way is governed by His own instructions. These are not arbitrary rules designed to make life difficult. Rather, they are a gracious provision from God, teaching His people the vast difference between the holy and the common, the clean and the unclean. The entire ceremonial law was a massive, acted-out object lesson, a sort of audio-visual aid to teach Israel about holiness. This particular passage zeroes in on the mediators, the priests themselves, showing that those who stand closest to the fire of God's presence must be the most careful. The principle is clear: greater privilege brings greater responsibility.

The theme is reverence. God is holy, and the things consecrated to Him are holy. To treat them as common, or to approach them in a state of commonness, is to profane His name. Profanation is the sin of dragging the holy down to the level of the mundane. These regulations, dealing with everything from skin diseases to dead bodies, were designed to create a deep-seated instinct in the priests, and by extension the people, that God is not to be trifled with. He sets the terms of approach, and we come on His terms or not at all.

Outline

Verse by Verse Commentary

Verse 1-2: Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they set apart to Me as holy, so as not to profane My holy name; I am Yahweh.”

The instruction comes directly from Yahweh. This is not Moses's idea, or a suggestion from a committee on worship practices. God Himself is establishing the protocol. The priests are to be "careful," or to separate themselves from, the holy gifts when they themselves are in a state of uncleanness. These gifts are the offerings brought by the people, consecrated to God. Once set apart for Him, they are no longer common. They belong to Him. To treat them as common is to profane, or pollute, God's holy name. It is to act as though His name, His reputation, His very character, is of no great account. The verse ends with the ultimate signature of authority: "I am Yahweh." This is not a negotiation. This is the declaration of the sovereign Creator, who has the right to define holiness and to demand it from His creatures.

Verse 3: Say to them, ‘If any man among all your seed throughout your generations comes near to the holy gifts which the sons of Israel set apart as holy to Yahweh, and he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from before Me; I am Yahweh.’

Now we see the teeth in the command. This is not a mere suggestion of best practices. The penalty for violation is severe: that person "shall be cut off from before Me." This phrase means excommunication at the very least, and in some contexts, execution. To bring uncleanness into the presence of the holy things is an act of high-handed rebellion. It is to trample on the gracious provision of God. The uncleanness here is not primarily a matter of hygiene, but of symbolism. The various forms of uncleanness all represent, in one way or another, death, decay, disorder, and the curse of sin. To bring a symbol of death into the presence of the Author of Life is a profound contradiction, an act of spiritual treason. Again, God signs it with His name: "I am Yahweh." He is the one who will enforce this boundary.

Verse 4-6: No man of the seed of Aaron, who is a leper or who has a discharge, may eat of the holy gifts until he is clean. And if one touches anything made unclean by a corpse, or if a man has a seminal emission, or if a man touches any teeming things by which he is made unclean or any man by whom he is made unclean, whatever his uncleanness, a person who touches any such thing shall be unclean until evening and shall not eat of the holy gifts unless he has bathed his body in water.

Here we get a list of specific defilements. Leprosy and discharges were visible signs of sickness and corruption, a picture of sin's ravaging effects. Contact with a corpse was contact with the wages of sin itself, death. A seminal emission, while not sinful, involved a loss of "life" and rendered a man ceremonially unclean. Touching unclean "teeming things" or another unclean person was defilement by association. The principle is that uncleanness is contagious. It spreads. This is a physical picture of a spiritual reality. Sin is not a static, private affair; it corrupts and defiles what it touches. The remedy is prescribed: the uncleanness lasts "until evening," and requires washing. It is a temporary state, but it must be dealt with through God's ordained means before the priest can resume his duties and privileges, specifically eating the holy food.

Verse 7: But the sun will set, and he will be clean. And afterward he shall eat of the holy gifts, for it is his food.

Restoration is possible. The setting of the sun marks the end of a day, a small picture of an ending and a new beginning. After the washing and the waiting, the priest is declared clean. He can once again "eat of the holy gifts." This is crucial. The priests lived off these portions of the sacrifices. Their physical sustenance was tied to their ceremonial purity. This beautifully illustrates how our spiritual sustenance, our fellowship with God, is dependent on our being cleansed. We cannot feast with God while clinging to our defilement. We must be washed. For the priest, it was with water. For us, it is in the blood of the Lamb.

Verse 8: He shall not eat an animal which dies or is torn by beasts, becoming unclean by it; I am Yahweh.

This rule distinguishes between a proper, sacrificial death and a "natural" or violent death out in the fallen world. An animal that died of itself or was killed by a predator was not offered up to God. Its blood was not drained in a prescribed way. It was simply a casualty of the curse. To eat such a thing was to ingest the decay and violence of the fallen order, making the priest unclean. This reinforced the distinction between the ordered, holy world of the covenant and the chaotic, death-filled world outside.

Verse 9: They shall therefore keep My charge so that they will not bear sin because of it and die thereby because they profane it; I am Yahweh who makes them holy.

This is the great summary. The priests are to "keep My charge", they are stewards of God's holiness. The consequence of failure is to "bear sin" and "die." Profaning the holy is a capital offense. But the verse ends with a thunderclap of gospel. Why must they do all this? Because "I am Yahweh who makes them holy." Their holiness was not an intrinsic quality. They were not holy because they were naturally better than other Israelites. They were holy because God had set them apart. He consecrated them. Their actions, their careful obedience, were to be the result of their God-given status, not the cause of it. They were to live out what God had declared them to be. This is the foundational logic of all biblical ethics. Because God has made you holy in Christ, you are therefore to be holy in your conduct.

Application

It is tempting for modern Christians to read a passage like this and dismiss it as part of an obsolete ceremonial code that was nailed to the cross. And in one sense, that is correct. We are no longer bound by these specific rituals. We don't worry about becoming unclean from touching a dead animal. But to dismiss the underlying principles would be a grave error. The entire holiness code was designed to teach us the character of God. God has not changed. He is still perfectly holy, and He still demands that we approach Him with reverence and awe.

We, the church, are now the royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). These instructions are for us, spiritually applied. We handle holy things: the Word of God, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the very name of our Savior. Do we treat them with the care this passage demands? Or do we approach worship casually, with our hearts full of the spiritual uncleanness of unconfessed sin, bitterness, or worldliness? To do so is to profane the holy name of the one who sanctifies us.

The good news is that we have a High Priest, Jesus Christ, who was never unclean and never had to be cleansed. He entered the true holy place not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own blood, obtaining an eternal redemption for us. Our cleansing is not temporary, lasting only "until evening." It is a permanent status. But like the priests of old, we are called to live consistently with that status. We are to keep His charge, examining ourselves and confessing our sins, so that we do not eat and drink judgment on ourselves when we come to the Lord's Table. The foundation remains the same: we are to be holy, for He who makes us holy is holy. "I am Yahweh who makes them holy."