Leviticus 6:18

All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) All the males among the children of Aaron.—The sin offerings, the trespass offerings, and the remainder of the peace offerings being most holy, could only be eaten by the male members of the families of the priests within the court of the sanctuary; whilst the offerings of tithes, fruit, the shoulder and breast of the people’s peace offerings, &c, being less holy, were not only eaten by the officiating priests in Jerusalem, but by their incapacitated sons, their daughters, &c, provided they were ritually clean. Any priest who ate the most holy things outside the wall of the courts, or the less holy things outside of the walls of Jerusalem, received forty stripes save one.

Every one that toucheth them shall be holy.—According to this rendering, which exhibits one of the views that obtained during the second Temple, the meaning is that any one who touches the sacrifices of the first order of holiness must not only be a descendant of Aaron and a male, but must have sanctified himself by undergoing the necessary ablutions. (See Leviticus 22:6-7.) There is, however, another view of the passage which is of equal, if not of anterior, date. That is, whoso or whatsoever toucheth them shall become holy. Any layman or any ordinary utensil, &c., becomes sacred by touching one of the higher order of sanctity. (See Exodus 29:37; Exodus 30:29; Ezekiel 44:19; Ezekiel 46:20; Haggai 2:12.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:14-23 The law of the burnt-offerings put upon the priests a great deal of care and work; the flesh was wholly burnt, and the priests had nothing but the skin. But most of the meat-offering was their own. It is God's will that his ministers should be provided with what is needful.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

With unleavened bread shall it be eaten - This should be, it (the remainder) shall be eaten unleavened.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Le 6:14-18. The Law of the Meat Offering.

14-18. this is the law of the meat offering—Though this was a provision for the priests and their families, it was to be regarded as "most holy"; and the way in which it was prepared was: on any meat offerings being presented, the priest carried them to the altar, and taking a handful from each of them as an oblation, he salted and burnt it on the altar; the residue became the property of the priests, and was the food of those whose duty it was to attend on the service. They themselves as well as the vessels from which they ate were typically holy, and they were not at liberty to partake of the meat offering while they labored under any ceremonial defilement.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

It may be understood either,

1. Of persons, that none should touch or eat them but consecrated persons, to wit, priests. Or this may be an additional caution, that they who eat them should be not only priests, or their male children, but also

holy, i.e. having no uncleanness upon them, for in that case even the priests themselves might not touch them. Or rather,

2. Of things, as may be gathered by comparing this with Leviticus 6:27,28. Whatsoever toucheth them, as suppose the dish that receives them, the knife, or spoon, &c. which is used about them, those shall be taken for holy, and not employed for common uses. See Exodus 29:37.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it,.... And they only, for none but they might eat in the holy place, and therefore these holy things that were to be eaten there, were only eaten by them; what might be eaten by the priests in their own houses, their wives and daughters ate of, but in the holy place only their males, and a male was one that was thirteen years of age:

it shall be a statute for ever in your generations, concerning the offerings of the Lord made by fire; a statute to last till the Messiah should come, the true meat or bread offering; and the bread he gave was his flesh, and he that eats of it shall not die, but live for ever, John 6:27,

everyone that toucheth them shall be holy; signifying, that no one ought to touch them but a holy person, one devoted to holy services, the priests and their sons; or "whatsoever" (o) toucheth them, the dishes they eat those offerings out of, or the knives they cut them with, were not to be used for anything else.

(o) "quicquid", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius.

Geneva Study Bible

All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. whosoever toucheth them shall be holy] This does not mean that only priests who have properly purified themselves may touch the most holy things, but that anyone, priest or layman, who inadvertently comes in contact with anything that is ‘most holy,’ becomes holy (i.e. dedicated to God, and put at His disposal), cp. Joshua 6:18; Joshua 7:15. No rule is given here about the treatment of such persons; for inanimate things which are brought into contact with the ‘most holy,’ see Leviticus 6:27-28. According to Haggai 2:12, the garment in which ‘holy flesh’ is carried, does not communicate holiness to the food which it may happen to touch.

Holiness is here regarded as a contagious quality; contact with holy things must be avoided, just as contact with things that are considered unclean is forbidden. This similarity in the treatment of things which from the levitical standpoint are so widely separated as the holy and the unclean is a survival of primitive modes of expression, due to imperfect conception of the gods, and of their relations to men. For further discussion of this subject see Driver (C. B.) on Exodus 29:37, with quotation from Frazer, G. B., G. B. Gray on Num. (Intern. Crit. Comm.) pp. 209–211, Rob.-Sm. Rel. Sem.2 p. 152, and the note B, pp. 446 f., and HDB. Art. Uncleanness, iv. 826 f. Cp. notes on ch. 11.

Leviticus 6:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Law of the Meat-Offering. - The regulations in Leviticus 6:14, Leviticus 6:15, are merely a repetition of Leviticus 2:2 and Leviticus 2:3; but in Leviticus 6:16-18 the new instructions are introduced with regard to what was left and had not been burned upon the altar. The priests were to eat this as unleavened, i.e., to bake it without leaven, and to eat it in a holy place, viz., in the court of the tabernacle. תּאכל מצות in Leviticus 6:16 is explained by "it shall not be baken with leaven" in Leviticus 6:17. It was the priests' share of the firings of Jehovah (see Leviticus 1:9), and as such it was most holy (see Leviticus 2:3), like the sin-offering and trespass-offering (Leviticus 6:25, Leviticus 6:26; Leviticus 7:6), and only to be eaten by the male members of the families of the priests. This was to be maintained as a statute for ever (see at Leviticus 3:17). Every one that touches them (the most holy offerings) becomes holy." יקדּשׁ does not mean he shall be holy, or shall sanctify himself (lxx, Vulg., Luth., a Lap., etc.), nor he is consecrated to the sanctuary and is to perform service there (Theodor., Knobel, and others). In this provision, which was equally applicable to the sin-offering (Leviticus 6:27), to the altar of the burnt-offering (Exodus 29:37), and to the most holy vessels of the tabernacle (Exodus 30:29), the word is not to be interpreted by Numbers 17:2-3, or Deuteronomy 22:9, or by the expression "shall be holy" in Leviticus 27:10, Leviticus 27:21, and Numbers 18:10, but by Isaiah 65:5, "touch me not, for I am holy." The idea is this, every layman who touched these most holy things became holy through the contact, so that henceforth he had to guard against defilement in the same manner as the sanctified priests (Leviticus 21:1-8), though without sharing the priestly rights and prerogatives. This necessarily placed him in a position which would involve many inconveniences in connection with ordinary life.