Leviticus 22

God guards the holiness of what is given to Him. Priests must be ceremonially clean before eating the sacred portions, and only the priest’s household may share them. Offerings brought to the altar must be without defect, and the chapter closes with a call to honor God’s holy name, since He is the One who sanctifies His people.

Leviticus 22:1-2

God tells Aaron and his sons to handle the sacred gifts with reverence. How they treat what belongs to God shows how they treat God Himself. To dishonor the offerings is to dishonor His holy name.

BSA: profane (“desecrate, pollute”): To profane is to treat something holy as if it were ordinary, and so to drag God’s name down with it.

Hebrew: יְחַלְּלוּ (yechallelu, H2490) — “make common, pierce, defile.” The Hebrew word for profane means to make something common. What God has set apart is lowered to the level of the everyday.

See also: Leviticus 10:10.

Leviticus 22:3

This law applies to every generation. A priest who comes near the holy gifts while unclean puts himself outside God’s favor. Being cut off from God’s presence is the most serious penalty, because nearness to Him is what priests are for.

BSA: presence (“face, before Me”): The word is literally God’s face. To be cut off is to lose the privilege of standing before Him.

Leviticus 22:4-5

Certain conditions made a priest unclean: a skin disease, a bodily discharge, touching a corpse, or touching a crawling creature. None of these was necessarily a sin. Each barred him for a time from the sacred food until he was clean.

BSA: clean (“pure, ceremonially cleansed”): The cleanness here is about fitness to approach God, not about moral goodness.

Leviticus 22:6-7

Uncleanness was temporary. A man who bathed in water and waited until sunset was clean again and could eat. God provides a way back, and the sacred food was the priest’s own portion, given to sustain him.

BSA: bathed (“washed, cleansed”): Washing with water pictured the removal of what kept him from God.

See also: Hebrews 10:22.

Leviticus 22:8

Priests were not to eat an animal that had died on its own or been torn by wild beasts. Such meat would make them unclean. Those who serve in holy things are to be careful about what they take in.

See also: Leviticus 17:15.

Leviticus 22:9

God’s instructions to the priests are serious. Careless handling of holy things brings guilt and even death. Yet the verse ends with a promise: the LORD is the One who sanctifies them. Their holiness depends on Him, not only on their effort.

BSA: sanctifies (“sets apart, consecrates”): God Himself makes the priests holy by setting them apart for His service.

Hebrew: מְקַדִּשָׁם (meqaddishām, H6942) — “the one making them holy.” The word is an active, ongoing description of God. He is the one making His people holy, and the work is not left to them alone.

Leviticus 22:10

The holy food was for the priest’s family. A guest staying with a priest, or a hired worker, did not share in it. These people were in the house but did not belong to the priestly family.

BSA: hired hand (“paid worker, servant”): Someone who works for wages and does not belong to the family by birth or purchase.

Leviticus 22:11

A slave bought by the priest, or born in his household, belonged to the family and could eat. Belonging to the household, not merely living nearby, decided who shared the food.

BSA: household (“his house, family”): Membership in the house, not mere presence, opened the table.

Leviticus 22:12-13

A priest’s daughter who married outside the priesthood no longer ate the sacred portions. If she became a childless widow or was divorced and came home, she was again part of her father’s house and could share his food as before.

BSA: returns (“to her father’s house, as in her youth”): Coming back to her father’s house restored her place at his table.

Leviticus 22:14

Someone who ate a holy portion by mistake could put it right. He repaid the full value, plus a fifth, to the priest. Even an unintended wrong against holy things needed to be made good.

BSA: error (“unintentionally, unwittingly”): The wrong was done without intent, yet it still needed to be put right.

See also: Leviticus 5:14-16.

Leviticus 22:15-16

The responsibility belonged to the priests. If they let unqualified people eat the holy gifts, they would bring guilt on those people and on themselves. Again the reason given is that the LORD makes them holy.

BSA: guilt (“iniquity, guilt”): The word describes both the wrong and the burden of its consequence.

Leviticus 22:17-19

A new instruction begins, and it applies to all Israelites and to foreigners living among them. A burnt offering, whether given for a vow or freely, had to be a male without defect, so that it would be accepted on the giver’s behalf.

BSA: burnt offering (“a step of ascent, a complete sacrifice”): The whole animal went up in smoke to God, a picture of complete surrender. unblemished (“complete, having no flaw”): The offering had to be whole and sound.

Hebrew: תָּמִים (tamim, H8549) — “complete, whole, without defect.” The Hebrew word means whole or complete. It describes an offering with nothing lacking, and it is also the word used for a person of integrity.

See also: 1 Peter 1:19.

Leviticus 22:20-21

The same rule holds for peace offerings, which were shared meals of fellowship and thanks. A flawed animal would not be accepted. What is offered to God should be the best, not what the giver would gladly throw away.

See also: Malachi 1:8.

Leviticus 22:22

The text lists the kinds of defects that disqualify an animal: blindness, injury, deformity, running sores, rashes and scabs. Such animals could not go on the altar as an offering made by fire.

BSA: altar (“place of sacrifice, where offerings are made”): The altar was the meeting point between the worshiper’s gift and God.

Leviticus 22:23

An animal with an overgrown or stunted limb could be given as a freewill gift, but not to fulfill a vow. A vow was a solemn promise, and it called for a perfect animal. The more serious the promise, the more complete the gift.

BSA: vow (“promise made to God, solemn pledge”): A vow was a binding promise, so what paid it had to be whole.

Leviticus 22:24-25

Animals with damaged or castrated testicles were not to be offered, in Israel or by foreigners, and not bought from outside to be offered either. God receives only what is whole and unspoiled.

BSA: food (“bread, grain”): The offerings are called God’s food, meaning His portion, a gift set before Him.

Leviticus 22:26-28

A newborn animal was to stay with its mother for seven days, and could be offered from the eighth day. An ox or sheep was not to be killed on the same day as its young. These rules show God’s care for animals and a gentleness He wants His people to learn.

See also: Deuteronomy 22:6-7; Exodus 22:30.

Leviticus 22:29-30

A thank offering was to be given rightly and eaten the same day, with nothing left until morning. Thanksgiving was meant to be shared and enjoyed at once, with no holding back.

BSA: thank offering (“of praise, a sacrifice of thanksgiving”): It was a sacrifice of praise, a way of saying thank you to God for what He had done.

Hebrew: תּוֹדָה (todah, H8426) — “thanksgiving, praise.” The Hebrew word means thanks given aloud. The offering was a public act, not only a silent feeling.

See also: Psalm 107:22.

Leviticus 22:31

God sums up with a call to obedience: keep My commandments and do them. Hearing is not enough. The commands are for living, and God stands behind them with His name.

See also: James 1:22.

Leviticus 22:32-33

Israel is not to dishonor God’s holy name, and God is to be treated as holy among them. The reason is His mercy: He brought them out of Egypt to be their God, and He is the one who makes them holy.

BSA: sanctifies (“consecrates, sets apart”): God sets His people apart for Himself by His own action. brought (“led, rescued”): The exodus was an act of rescue, and holiness is the response to it.

See also: Exodus 20:2; 1 Peter 1:15-16.