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Leviticus 21

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1 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Speak unto the priests, sons of Aaron, and thou hast said unto them, For [any] person [a priest] is not defiled among his people,

2 except for his relation who [is] near unto him -- for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother.

3 and for his sister, the virgin, who is near unto him, who hath not been to a man; for her he is defiled.

4 `A master [priest] doth not defile himself among his people -- to pollute himself;

5 they do not make baldness on their head, and the corner of their beard they do not shave, and in their flesh they do not make a cutting;

6 they are holy to their God, and they pollute not the name of their God, for the fire-offerings of Jehovah, bread of their God, they are bringing near, and have been holy.

7 `A woman, a harlot, or polluted, they do not take, and a woman cast out from her husband they do not take, for he [is] holy to his God;

8 and thou hast sanctified him, for the bread of thy God he is bringing near; he is holy to thee; for holy [am] I, Jehovah, sanctifying you.

9 `And a daughter of any priest when she polluteth herself by going a-whoring -- her father she is polluting; with fire she is burnt.

10 `And the high priest of his brethren, on whose head is poured the anointing oil, and hath consecrated his hand to put on the garments, his head doth not uncover, nor rend his garments,

11 nor beside any dead person doth he come; for his father and for his mother he doth not defile himself;

12 nor from the sanctuary doth he go out, nor doth he pollute the sanctuary of his God, for the separation of the anointing oil of his God [is] on him; I [am] Jehovah.

13 `And he taketh a wife in her virginity;

14 widow, or cast out, or polluted one -- a harlot -- these he doth not take, but a virgin of his own people he doth take [for] a wife,

15 and he doth not pollute his seed among his people; for I [am] Jehovah, sanctifying him.'

16 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

17 `Speak unto Aaron, saying, No man of thy seed to their generations in whom there is blemish doth draw near to bring near the bread of his God,

18 for no man in whom [is] blemish doth draw near -- a man blind, or lame or dwarfed, or enlarged,

19 or a man in whom there is a breach in the foot, or a breach in the hand,

20 or hump-backed, or a dwarf, or with a mixture in his eye, or a scurvy person, or scabbed, or broken-testicled.

21 `No man in whom is blemish (of the seed of Aaron the priest) doth come nigh to bring near the fire-offerings of Jehovah; blemish [is] in him; the bread of his God he doth not come nigh to bring near.

22 `Bread of his God -- of the most holy things, and of the holy things -- he doth eat;

23 only, unto the vail he doth not enter, and unto the altar he doth not draw nigh; for blemish [is] in him; and he doth not pollute My sanctuaries; for I [am] Jehovah, sanctifying them.'

24 And Moses speaketh unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the sons of Israel.

   

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Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.