Leviticus 21: 1 – 24
Special Ops
21 And the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘None shall defile himself for the dead among his people, 2 except for his relatives who are nearest to him: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother; 3 also his virgin sister who is near to him, who has had no husband, for her he may defile himself. 4 Otherwise he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. 5 ‘They shall not make any bald place on their heads, nor shall they shave the edges of their beards nor make any cuttings in their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy. 7 They shall not take a wife who is a harlot or a defiled woman, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for the pries is holy to his God. 8 Therefore you shall consecrate him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy. 9 The daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fire. 10 ‘He who is the high priest among his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil was poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes; 11 nor shall he go near any dead body, nor defile himself for his father or his mother; 12 nor shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD. 13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot—these he shall not marry; but he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife. 15 Nor shall he profane his posterity among his people, for I the LORD sanctify him.’” 16 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying: ‘No man of your descendants in succeeding generations, who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, 19 a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, 20 or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch. 21 No man of the descendants of Aaron the priest, who has a defect, shall come near to offer the offerings made by fire to the LORD. He has a defect; he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both the most holy and the holy; 23 only he shall not go near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a defect, lest he profane My sanctuaries; for I the LORD sanctify them.’” 24 And Moses told it to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel.
We are blessed by our Lord of Hosts for rising up brave men and women who are willing to give their all in the protection of our rights. You would be amazed at the amount of special operation units that we have in our military. Each branch has its own unique elite units. Let me just give you the names of the top units from each group.
US Army
. Delta
. Green Berets
. Rangers
Navy
. SEALs
. Marine Force Recon
Air Force
. Jay Force Recon
These are the elite Special Operations unit of the US armed forces. They are trained to operate in small units. Most missions are clandestine in nature, planned in exacting detail and executed with precision and swiftness.
During peacetime these special units find themselves with the same rigorous training as during war. Training remains strict to enforce the belief that the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you will bleed in war.
There is no fame, fortune or public recognition for what a Special Ops commando accomplishes - most of it is classified. Quiet professional job satisfaction is the norm
Their missions include: direct action warfare; special reconnaissance; counterterrorism; and foreign internal defense. When there’s nowhere else to turn, these Special elite forces achieve the impossible through critical thinking, sheer willpower and absolute dedication to their training, their missions and their fellow Special Operations team members.
Their duties include, but are not limited to:
Conducting insertions and extractions by sea, air or land to accomplish covert, Special Warfare/Special Operations missions
Capturing high-value enemy personnel and terrorists around the world
Collecting information and intelligence through special reconnaissance missions
Carrying out small-unit, direct-action missions against military targets
Performing reconnaissance and the demolition of natural or man-made obstacles
Training for these elite units has been described as "brutal", preparing you for the extreme physical and mental challenges of Special Operation missions. It’s all designed to push you to your physical and mental limits.
Today we are going to take a look at the additional requirements our Holy Master requires of His Special Operations servants. Above all others these men must live their lives above what is required of other children of God. Our Great Commander of the Lord’s Hosts our Precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel of Luke chapter 12 verse 48 this, “But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”. If you want to be part of the Lord’s elite force than expect the additional requirements He desires.
Having laid down the basic principles behind the covenant as regards the people and their holiness, our Great and Mighty Ruler now turns again to the priests. In so doing we remind ourselves of the pattern around which Leviticus is built.
. It began with the laws relating to sacrifice (1-7)
. It continued with the consecration of the priests (8-10)
. It was then followed by the laws of cleanness and uncleanness for the people (11-15)
. It then lead up to the Day of Atonement (16).
. It was then followed by the laws of ritual and moral holiness for the people 17-20
It is now followed by instructions re the maintenance of the holiness of the priests (21-22) a reversal of the order in the first part
. It will then be followed by laws relating to the ritual requirements on the nation with regard to times and seasons (23-25).
Chapter 26 then closes off with the blessings and curses which were a normal ending to covenants around the time of Moses in 2nd millennium BC, and chapter 27 is a postscript in respect of vows.
The sections concerning the people are thus sandwiched within the ministry of the priests. The priesthood is given responsibility for them, and their holiness is therefore of prime importance.
Today our Lord has assigned some co-shepherds to watch over His flocks. Select men are sanctified by Him so that to be in this position their lives are to be pure and clean, and in order to reveal His praise and glory.
The priesthood was the essential link between Yahweh and His people. They were therefore to be especially careful in the maintenance of holiness so that they might fulfill their functions before a holy God. Great was their privilege, but great the demands made on them. Humanly speaking the holiness of God’s people depended on them.
21 And the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘None shall defile himself for the dead among his people, 2 except for his relatives who are nearest to him: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother; 3 also his virgin sister who is near to him, who has had no husband, for her he may defile himself.
Especially those who served in the Tabernacle must avoid coming in contact with death. To come in contact with a dead body was to become unclean for seven days (Numbers 19.11-13), for as has been apparent in the laws of uncleanness death was the opposite of all that Yahweh stood for. He was and Is The Lord of life. This would render a priest inoperative over that period.
He was thus totally to avoid all contact with the dead, in order to prevent himself from being ‘defiled’. He was not free to do as he would. He was ‘holy’. Contact with the dead was a major source of uncleanness for a man. It lasted seven days. They were ever to remain clean. The only exception was where close family relationships made it necessary
So the priest was to avoid all contact with the dead apart from near kin. These comprised father, mother, son, daughter, brother or a virgin sister who has no one else responsible for her. Where she was married the latter was her husband’s responsibility. For these he could be responsible for their mourning and burial. These both emphasize proper respect for close kin, and the need for continuing purity in all other cases. There is no mention of his wife. This is quite usual (Exodus 20.10). That she was included would be assumed. She was of one flesh with him.
4 Otherwise he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. And the reason for these extreme precautions is given, his prominence as a ‘chief man’ among the people, someone set apart from the ordinary with a principal function. This made it important that he did not profane himself by making himself unable to operate in fulfillment of his responsibilities. Those who have the greatest responsibility must exercise the greatest care in maintaining worthiness necessary for the fulfillment of their responsibilities.
For all believers we can take away from these directions that while not forbidden to touch dead bodies, those who would serve God most truly today must avoid all contact with anything that is unseemly to God. Their eyes too should be turned away from the mundane to seek those things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3.1-3). They should be taken up with the things of eternal life, not with the things of death through trespasses and sins. They are to look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are unseen (2 Corinthians 4.18). For they know that they are passed from death to life because they love their Christian brothers and sisters (1 John 3.14), and that love should permeate their whole lives. They must throw all their weight into things to do with life and purity. Their thoughts must be on whatever things are true, honorable, righteous, pure, lovely and gracious (Philippians 4.8). Like the priests they are to be separated to God.
5 ‘They shall not make any bald place on their heads, nor shall they shave the edges of their beards nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
Nor were they were ever to profane themselves by engaging in activities and dress that were foreign to Yahweh’s ways. These included shaving their heads, trimming their beards in any fashion that might be connected with idolatry, and making cuttings in their flesh (1 Kings 18.28). All these were pagan methods of representing a state of mourning or seeking to influence deity and may also have been utilized on other religious occasions. All were forbidden. They would be seen as blemishes which would render them ineligible to enter the sanctuary, for they would declare that they were not Yahweh’s men, but defiled by paganism.
Thus those who would serve God truly must abstain from anything that is doubtful in the ‘spiritual’ realm, seeking only to God Himself. Anything to do with the occult is to be seen by the Christian as taboo, as something not to be touched and to be avoided. For we are Christ’s, and our lives are hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3.3)
6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy.
For the priests were to be seen as holy to God, and must not degrade Him by making Him seem like other supposed gods, or bringing death into His presence. They were to avoid anything that might profane His name, that is, might wrongly represent how He was seen and what He was, anything that would hide how different He was. They were His chosen servants. So in order to be fitted for this holy task they must be holy, and set apart from all that is related to death and to paganism, and all that misrepresents Him. (Mourning was given as the extreme example).
All believers are to be concerned for the name and reputation of God. By our lives we are to bring glory to Him (1 Corinthians 10.31), and to avoid anything that would bring dishonor to His name (1 Peter 4.14-16). Rather we are to show forth the excellencies of His Who has called us out of darkness into His most marvelous light (1 Peter 2.9), and by our good works glorify our Father Who is in Heaven (Matthew 5.16)..
7 They shall not take a wife who is a harlot or a defiled woman, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for the priest is holy to his God.
The priests must also have no sexual contact with only certain women. Because the priests are holy they must not marry a prostitute [ even a converted one], whether cult or otherwise, or a woman with a reputation for not being godly, or a divorced woman, who was still seen as in some way ‘one’ with her divorced husband. Their wives must be of good repute and virginal, as they came from the hand of God, fitted in purity to be the wives of God’s servants. Seemingly, however, they could marry widows of good standing. Such were no longer one with their husbands because the death of their husbands had removed the oneness.
In the same way those who would serve God truly must beware of whom they marry. Not only should they avoid marrying a non-Christian (2 Corinthians 6.14), they should look for chastity and purity and a right attitude of heart towards God. A man or woman’s future can be made or broken by the partner that they marry.
8 Therefore you shall consecrate him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.
These words are spoken to either Moses or Israel as a whole. Yahweh is thus telling Moses to ‘sanctify’ (make holy) each priest by strictly requiring of him a life of purity and separateness from all that was unclean, precisely because he offers and eats the bread of his God. Moses had a continual responsibility, while he was alive, to watch over the holiness of the priests. If the reference is to Israel then ‘sanctify’ probably means ‘see as holy’. This was so that each one would be holy in Moses’ eyes, and therefore in Israel’s eyes, just as Yahweh God, Who Himself sanctifies both Moses and Israel, is holy, and is to be seen as holy in their eyes. All was to be holiness.
9 The daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fire.
The thought of the priest not marrying a prostitute leads on to the possible danger of a priest’s daughter becoming a prostitute by virtue of her situation. As probably in the case of the worship of the golden calf (‘rose up to play’ - Exodus 32.6) it is clear that many people, even those with priestly connections, were ever in danger of desiring to participate in sexual rites connected with idolatry, possibly revering them as a kind of religious expression. And they would see sexual union with a priest’s daughter as the most desirable kind of such an expression. They had clearly had much contact with such sentiments and tended to revert to them. Such ideas had an understandable magnetic attraction. But they were forbidden to Israel, and especially to a priest’s daughter.
If a priest’s daughter was therefore encouraged by some to act in this way, and did so, she would be profaning her father, bringing shame on him and connecting him with worship that was both crude and unacceptable, and she must therefore be burned with fire. This punishment is on a par with that for a man marrying both mother and daughter at the same time (20.14), and for sinning in sacred things (Joshua 7.25). She would be being ‘devoted’ to Yahweh because she had sinned in a sacred thing. A priest’s family members were seen as holy, and must behave so.
In the New Testament also the failure of a child to live rightly always brings disrepute on its parents and makes them unfitted for ministry. They are a reflection of their parents. Our children reveal what we are.
There was one for whom there were no exceptions. His position was so high and so privileged that he must seek to avoid all contact with death under any circumstance.
10 ‘He who is the high priest among his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil was poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes; 11 nor shall he go near any dead body, nor defile himself for his father or his mother; 12 nor shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
The High Priest especially is unique. He represents the whole of Israel continually before God, and is the anointed one of Yahweh. He alone has been consecrated to wear the holy garments. He stands alone. His holiness therefore is of primary concern and must be preserved at all costs and at all times. He must avoid anything that might lessen his ability to fulfill his function at any time.
He therefore must not show signs of mourning, or touch a dead body, not even that of his father and mother. He must not leave the sanctuary for this purpose, nor carry signs of death within the sanctuary for he bears the crown of the anointing oil of his God. Yahweh Is ‘the One Who Is’, the ever Living God, to Whom death and all connected with it is a stranger. The High Priest must therefore avoid all such contact. He must be seen to be on Yahweh’s side of things at all times.
13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot—these he shall not marry; but he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife.
He may only marry a virgin, the purest of the pure. No other possibilities existed.
15 Nor shall he profane his posterity among his people, for I the LORD sanctify him.’”
For to produce children through such would be to make them reduced in holiness in the eyes of the people. They would not have their due respect nor be fitted for High Priesthood.
Those who would serve God most truly will like the High Priest put away all things that could hinder their work and service for God. The High Priest had the choice of being the best for God, and that is what he was called to. He had to put aside all that could be a hindrance. We are also called on to choose the best. It is those who seek the best who will be the best for Him.
The reason for this requirement is to bring out that only what is ‘perfect’ may directly enter the sanctuary of Yahweh, or serve in it, demonstrating the perfection of the sanctuary. The relationship to God of the blemished priests is not affected, only the particular service for God in the sanctuary. The centre of the circle of holiness must be seen to be supremely ‘holy’; a place of total perfection, in order to bring out visually that Yahweh Is ‘perfect’.
We must recognize here that what was physically so, what could be seen, was considered in those days to be extremely important. They had no solely spiritual conception of things. Thus what God was, was seen as depicted by what surrounded Him, and that had therefore to be ‘perfect’ (as perfect as possible) in order to demonstrate His perfection.
16 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying: ‘No man of your descendants in succeeding generations, who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God.
No one obviously blemished must approach God to offer the offerings as priests, to offer the ‘food of God’ which would come as a pleasing odor to Yahweh and of which the priests might eat.
18 For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, 19 a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, 20 or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch. 21 No man of the descendants of Aaron the priest, who has a defect, shall come near to offer the offerings made by fire to the LORD. He has a defect; he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
A list of possible blemishes is now given. Whoever was looked on as blemished was to be excluded. It was no reflection on the individuals; it was how people saw it that mattered. It was they on whom the impression of holiness was to be made.
22 He may eat the bread of his God, both the most holy and the holy; 23 only he shall not go near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a defect, lest he profane My sanctuaries; for I the LORD sanctify them.’”
They were not excluded from the privileges of priesthood, only from the performance of its ministry in the sanctuary. Thus they could partake of the priestly offerings, even those which were most holy of which only the priests could partake. But they were excluded from the Holy Place, from approaching the veil, and from approaching the altar to minister on it. They could, however, presumably carry out the teaching and judicial functions which were incumbent on the priests.
24 And Moses told it to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel.
The importance of these restrictions with regard to the priesthood is such that they end with this confirmatory statement. This then especially is what Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all Israel. The purity of the priesthood was vital.
Thankfully for us it is not blemishes like this which will in our case prevent our full approach to God. Rather are we restricted by the blemishes in our hearts? Spiritual crookedness, blindness, deafness, dumbness, smallness, distortedness, is all things which prevent us from being heard by God and from serving Him.
