The Priests. (Their duties.) The only officials qualified to bear the name or discharge the duties of priests especially the duty of sacrifice are the Zadokites, i.e. the descendants of the Zadok who had been appointed head of the Jerusalem priesthood by Solomon, when Abiathar, who had sided with Adonijah, was deposed (1 Kings 2:35). Doubtless the Jerusalem priests were, in point of morality and religion, superior, broadly speaking, to the country priests (cf. Ezekiel 44:15), though the revelations in ch. 8 show that the Temple worship could be depraved enough; but the high prerogatives are here conferred upon them, just because of their connexion with Jerusalem. Their officiating dress, which was to be of linen, they had to change, before going out to the people in the outer court: otherwise the sanctity of the dress would have been transferred to the people with whom they came in contact, and rendered them unfit for secular occupations (Genesis 35:2 *). Other restrictions follow touching the hair, drink, and marriage of the priests. It is significant that wine must not be drunk by a priest who is about to officiate, nor must he incur defilement by touching a dead body, except in the case of very near blood-relations. The wife, however, is excluded, as she is not a blood-relation, and the married daughter, as, by her marriage, she has passed into another family. In the suggestion of uncleanness involved by contact with the dead, we have probably an implicit protest against the worship of the dead (Leviticus 5:2, Numbers 19*). The duties of the priests (Ezekiel 44:23 f.), in addition to the offering of sacrifice, are to teach the people the distinction between that which is ritually clean and un clean, holy and unholy, to decide controversies, and to arrange for the festivals and the hallowing of the Sabbath. (In Ezekiel 44:26, for is cleansed read, with Syr., has incurred defilement.)
Ezekiel 44:15-27
15 But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD:
16 They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge.
17 And it shall come to pass, that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within.
18 They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat.
19 And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.
20 Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads.
21 Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court.
22 Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away: but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a priest before.
23 And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
24 And in controversy they shall stand in judgment; and they shall judge it according to my judgments: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my sabbaths.
25 And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves: but for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister that hath had no husband, they may defile themselves.
26 And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days.
27 And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord GOD.