Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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which the law allows to be paid to the remains of our deceased friends, shows that we are not to look upon them as lost. Nor,
(2.) Must it be passionate or immoderate. Note, God's ministers must be examples to others of patience under affliction, particularly that which touches in a very tender part, the death of their near relations. They are supposed to know more than others of the reasons why we must not sorrow as those that have no hope (1Th 4:13), and therefore they ought to be eminently calm and composed, that they may be able to comfort others with the same comforts wherewith they are themselves comforted of God. The people were forbidden to mourn for the dead with superstitious rites (Le 19:27,28), and what was unlawful to them was much more unlawful to the priest. The reason given for their peculiar care not to defile themselves we have (Le 21:6): Because they offered the bread of their God, even the offerings of the Lord made by fire, which were the provisions of God's house and table. They are highly honoured, and therefore must not stain their honour by making themselves slaves to their passions; they are continually employed in sacred service, and therefore must not be either diverted from or disfitted for the services they were called to. If they pollute themselves, they profane the name of their God on whom they attend: if the servants are rude and of ill behaviour, it is a reflection upon the master, as if he kept a loose and disorderly house. Note, All that either offer or eat the bread of our God must be holy in all manner of conversation, or else they profane that name which they pretend to sanctify.
2 but for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for
his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother,
3 and for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no
husband; for her may he be defiled.
4 But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people,
to profane himself.