And shall afterward eat... because it is his food. — As the sacrifices which were the perquisites of the officiating priests were the only things he had to live upon, the priest who had contracted defilement had virtually to go without food till sundown, when he purified himself by the prescribed lustrations.
That which dieth of itself. — That is, clean animals or birds which have not been properly slaughtered, but have met with an accident. These have already been forbidden to every ordinary Israelite. (See Leviticus 17:15.) In the case of a priest eating the proscribed meat the consequences would be more serious, inasmuch as he would be debarred from his sacerdotal duties.
Keep my ordinance. — That is, one laid down in the preceding verse with reference to animals which died a natural death, &c.
And die therefore, if they profane it. — The death here threatened for the transgression of the ordinance is one not to be inflicted by an earthly tribunal, but, as it was explained during the second Temple, “by the hand of heaven.” Hence the Chaldee version of Jonathan renders it, “lest they be killed for it by a flaming fire” like Nadab and Abihu.