Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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thankful to the widows' God, who does not leave them comfortless.
3. Here is a demand of restitution to be made by him that had no right to the holy things, and yet should eat of them unwittingly, Le 22:14. If he did it presumptuously, and in contempt of the divine institution, he was liable to be cut off by the hand of God, and to be beaten by the magistrate; but, if he did it through weakness in inconsideration, he was to restore the value, adding a fifth part to it, besides which he was to bring an offering to atone for the trespass; see Le 5:15,16.
This law might be dispensed with in a case of necessity, as it was when David and his men ate of the show-bread, 1Sa 21:6. And our Saviour justifies them, and gives a reason for it, which furnishes us with a lasting rule in all such cases, that God will have mercy and not sacrifice, Mt 12:3,4,7. Rituals must give way to morals.
It is an instruction to gospel ministers, who are stewards of the mysteries of God, not to admit all, without distinction, to eat of the holy things, but to take out the precious from the vile. Those that are scandalously ignorant or profane are strangers and aliens to the family of the Lord's priests; and it is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to such. Holy things are for holy persons, for those who are holy, at least, in profession, Mt 7:6.
13 But if the priest’s daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no
child, and is returned unto her father’s house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father’s meat: but there shall no stranger eat thereof.
14 And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the
fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing.
15 And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel,
which they offer unto the Lord;