Leviticus 21:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

LEVITICUS CHAPTER 21 Priests must not defile themselves, in mourning over the dead: cases excepted, Leviticus 21:1-6. Nor marry with a whore, profane, or divorced woman, Leviticus 21:7,8. His daughter, if a whore, to be burnt with fire, Leviticus 21:9. The high priest must in no case defile himself with the dead, Leviticus 21:10-12: must marry a virgin of his people, Leviticus 21:13-15. Persons having bodily defects allowed to eat of the holy things, but not to serve in the tabernacle, or offer to God, Leviticus 21:16-24. To wit, by touching of the dead body, or abiding in the same house with it, or assisting at his funerals, or eating of the funeral feast. The reason of this law is evident, because by such pollution they were excluded from converse with men, to whom by their function they were to be serviceable upon all occasions, and from the handling of holy things, Numbers 6:6, Numbers 19:11,14,16 Deu 26:14 Hosea 9:4. And God would hereby teach them, and in them all successive ministers of holy things, that they ought so entirely to give themselves to the service of God, that they ought to renounce all expressions of natural affections, and all worldly employments, so far as they are impediments to the discharge of their holy services. See Leviticus 10:3,7 Deu 33:9 Matthew 8:22. Hereby also God would beget in the people a greater reverence to the priestly function, and oblige the priests to a greater degree of strictness and purity than other men.