And when the sun is down he shall be clean,.... Having washed himself in water, otherwise not, though the sun may be set:
and shall afterwards eat of the holy things; the families of the priests lived upon:
because it [is] his food: his common food, his ordinary diet, that by which he subsists, having nothing else to live upon; this being the ordination of God, that he which ministered about holy things should live on them; and these being his only substance, in compassion to him they were detained from him no longer than the evening; and this was done, to make him careful how he defiled himself, since thereby he was debarred of his ordinary meals.