40. And for Aaron’s sons. The sons of Aaron also are separated not only from the body of the people, but likewise from the Levites; for a peculiar dignity was attached to that family, from whom his successor was afterwards to be taken. (170) And since no single individual was able to perform all their offices, they were distributed amongst them. Hence it was that they were adorned with the coat, the girdle, and the bonnet, “for glory and for beauty.” We shall see as to their anointing in the next chapter. Their hands are said be filled, (171) when they are made fit for offering sacrifices, for as long as their hands are unconsecrated ( profanae) they are accounted empty, even though they may be very full, since no gift is acceptable to God except in right of the priesthood; consequently their fullness arose from consecration, whereby it came that the oblations duly made had access to God. But we must observe that it is not their father Aaron, but Moses, who sanctifies them, that the power itself, or effect of their sanctification, may rest in God, and may not be transferred to His ministers. Perhaps, too, God would anticipate the calumnies of the ungodly, lest any should afterwards object that Aaron had fraudulently and unjustly extended the honor conferred upon himself alone to his sons also, and thus had unlawfully made it hereditary. He was protected against this reproach by the fact, that the sacerdotal dignity came to them from elsewhere. Besides, by these means the posterity of Moses was more certainly deprived of the hope they may have conceived in consideration of what their father was. Therefore Moses, by inaugurating the children of Aaron, reduced his own to their proper place, lest ally ambition should hereafter tempt them, or lest envy should possess them when they saw themselves put below others.
(170) “ Les successeurs de la souveraine sacrificature;” the successors in the sovereign priesthood.
(171) A.V., “consecrate,” v. 41. Margin, “ fill their hand;” i.e., says Rosenmuller, in loco, “ thou shalt deliver them the power of their office. Le Clerc suggests that the phrase is perhaps borrowed from some ancient oriental rite, in which the ensigns of office were put into the hands of those to whom it was entrusted. It appears also, from the following chapter, ver. 24, that all the sacred offerings were placed by Moses in the hands of the priests at their inauguration."