Lev 21.1-24 tells us about some regulations concerning the priests and the Mishkan/Sanctuary/Temple; more restrictions for the High Priest; physical blemishes in a priest.
Holiness is…
v 1…Then the Lord said to Moses, “Speak (Emor) to the priests (kohanim), the sons of Aaron, and say to them, ‘No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his people (this influenced the priests in the story of the Good Samaritan; sin and death are linked-Num 19.14; Rom 5.12);
v 2…except for his relatives who are nearest to him, his mother and father and his son and his daughter and his brother (in an exception, Ezekiel was allowed to mourn his wife because she was a type of the Temple that would be destroyed-Ezek 24.16-27),
v 3…also his virgin (unmarried) sister who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may defile himself.
v 4…He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, and so profane himself (to make himself unfit for service in the Temple).
v 5…They shall not make any baldness on their heads nor shave off the edges of their beard nor make any cuts (mutilations) in their flesh (this has to do with pagan mourning rites-Lev 19.27; Deit 14.1-2).
v 6…They shall be holy (set apart with a kedusha with limitations and restrictions) to their God and not profane the name of their God (Yehovah), for they present the offerings by fire to the Lord, the bread (lechem; certain portions which belonged to the priests) of their God; so they shall be holy (set apart with a kedusha).
v 7…They shall not take (as a wife) a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband (a wife speaks of spiritual life).
v 8…You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he offers the bread (lechem; food) of your God; he shall be holy (set apart with a kedusha) to you, for I the Lord, who sanctifies you (set you apart with a kedusha) am holy (has a kedusha).
v 9…Also the daughter of any priest, of she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father, she shall be burned with fire (because it brought scandal to the priesthood).
v 10…And the priest who is the highest (the high priest; other priests could be replaced, but he couldn’t, like Yeshua; unlike the common priest, he could not use the common expressions of grief, sorrow or mourning) among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured, and who has been consecrated to wear the garments (the golden garments), shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes (on account of the dead);
v 11…nor shall he approach any dead person, nor defile himself even for his father or his mother (the high priest is a picture of Yeshua/the perfect man in the Olam Haba where there will be no death, and he had to always be ready in the Temple);
v 12…nor shall he go out of the sanctuary (he always had permanent housing there during his service, but he may go out to his house at night), nor profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him; I am the Lord.
v 13…And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
v 14…A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people (this is a picture of Messiah and the Kahal-1 Cor 11.2; in Christianity, Catholicism says their priests can’t marry, and in Protestantism they say their ministers can’t divorce; both are man-made traditions);
v 15…that he may not profane his offspring among his people (by marrying any of the above by impairing the pure descent of the Aaronic family); for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.’ “
v 16…Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
v 17…”Speak to Aaron, saying, ‘No man of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect shall approach to offer the bread of his God (they were not exempt from being a priest; they served in the chamber of wood inspecting the wood to make sure it was useable; Paul had this in mind in Eph 5.27; Titus 1.6).
v 18…For no one who has a defect (this has a spiritual allusion) shall approach: a blind man (who can’t see God’s ways), or a lame man (who can’t walk in God’s ways), or has a disfigured face (“flat nose” or any mutilation there), or any deformed limb,
v 19…or a man who has a broken foot or hand (something wrong in service),
v 20…or a hunchback or a dwarf (to small to attend the altar, etc), or one who has a defect in his eyes or scurvy or scabs or crushed testicles.
v 21…No man among the descendants of Aaron the priest, who has a defect, is to come near to offer the Lord’s offerings by fire;m since he has a defect, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
v 22…He may eat the bread (food) of his God (it was his due as a priest), both of the most holy (kodshai kodeshim which was to be eaten in the courts) and of the holy (kodshai kelim which can be eaten within the camp),
v 23…only he shall not go into the veil (into the holy place to set the Menorah and the bread on the table or offer incense; some say this means he could never be a high priest and enter the holy of holies) or come near the altar (of burnt offering) because he has a defect, that he may not profane my sanctuaries (by serving if a high priest, the holy of holies; if a common priest, the holy place; and the courts in general).’ “
v 24…So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel (the heads and elders of the tribes who would tell the people; they must know who was eligible and insist that they be enforced).
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