God's Priests and God's Priest

This chapter deals with and gives specific instructions to the priests of Israel, the sons of Aaron.
• In verses 1-6 the priests were forbidden to mourn the dead as other people do.
• In verses 7 and 8, the Lord tells them that even in the selection of their wives, God's honor was to be paramount.
• In verse 9, God required that any priest's daughter who profaned her father by playing the harlot was to be put to death.
• Verses 10-15 give specific instructions to the high priests throughout their generations. The high priest was not to mourn as others might, even for his own parents (vv. 10-11). He who served as God's high priest was to live always in the service of God's sanctuary (v. 12). His wife was to be neither a widow nor a divorced woman, but only a virgin of the daughters of Israel (vv. 13-14). In a word, he was to so order his life and household that God was honored in it (v. 15).
• Verses 16-24 are addressed specifically to Moses, the lawgiver, and required that none of the priests (none of the males in Aaron's family) who had a blemish of any kind be allowed to serve as God's priests.