Neither shall he go in to any dead body,.... That is, into a tent or house where any dead body lies, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra interpret it, for whoever went into such a place was unclean seven days; and so long therefore an high priest, should he enter there, would be prevented doing the duty of his office, see Numbers 19:14; this was aped and followed by the Heathens in later times; so among the Romans, the "Flamen Dialis", or high priest of Jupiter, might not go into a place where a dead body was burnt or buried, nor touch any h; and it was a custom with them, as Servius i tells us, to put a branch of cypress at the door of a house where a dead body was, that an high priest might not enter through ignorance, and be defiled:
nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother; by entering into the tent or house where they lay dead, or by touching them, or attending the funeral of them, or by concerning himself about it; and there was no need to mention his son or his daughter, his brother or his sister; for if he was not to defile himself for any of his parents, much less for any of those which are excepted in the case of a common priest, Leviticus 21:2; the Jews do indeed make one exception in the case of an high priest, and that is, that if he meets with a dead body in the way, he was obliged to defile himself for it and bury it k; and so among the Romans, though it was a crime for an high priest to look upon a dead body, yet it was reckoned a greater, if, when he saw it, he left it unburied l.
h Massurius Sabinus, apud A. Gell. Noct. Attic. l. 10. c. 15. i In Virgil. Aeneid. l. 3. ver. 64. "atraque cupresso". k Maimon. Hilchot Ebel, c. 3. sect. 8. l Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 6. ad ver. "praecipue pius Aeneas", &c.