The section we've been studying for four days will conclude with regulations regarding who among the priests' families may or may not eat of the sacred offerings brought to the tabernacle.
In many cases, a portion of each offering that is brought by the people to the tabernacle belongs to the priests and their families. This is how these men provide for their families. When they reach the promised land, their tribe (the tribe of Levi) will be given cities but not territories. They aren't meant to be farmers. They aren't meant to be hunters. They are meant to serve God and this means they make their living from serving God, just as many of our church pastors today are paid a full time salary for their work.
"No one outside a priest's family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it." (Leviticus 22:10) If a priest holds a dinner at his house and invites guests over, or if he has guests staying with him who are not related to him, or if he has hired workers who eat at the table with the family, he is not to serve them food that has been offered at the tabernacle. The food he serves them must come from some other source.
"But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if slaves are born in his household, they may eat his food." (Leviticus 22:11) Some scholars state the slave can eat it because he is part of the family. Other scholars believe the slave can eat it because he is the property of the priest. Either way, we've previously studied some of the regulations concerning slaves during our study of the Old Testament and we learned that, in Israel, slavery was not the same type of thing that we once had in the United States. I tend to agree with the scholars who feel that a slave bought by the priest or a slave born to slaves already of the priest's household are considered as extended family members. I can't imagine a priest sharing sacred offerings with anyone he considers his property---anyone he considers "beneath him" in the way American slave owners used to consider their slaves.
"If a priest's daughter marries anyone other than a priest, she may not eat any of the sacred contributions." (Leviticus 22:12) If his daughter marries a man outside of the tribe of Levi, she is considered as part of another tribe now. She is creating a new family line with her husband and any children they have will belong to the husband's tribe, not to the wife's tribe. When she is visiting her father's house she can't partake of any food that was offered at the tabernacle.
An exception would be if the daughter has to return to her father's house to live due to the death of her husband or due to being divorced by her husband. "But if a priest's daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father's household as in her youth, she may eat her father's food. No unauthorized person, however, may eat it." (Leviticus 22:13) A grown son of a widowed or divorced woman was expected to take her into his household and provide for her for the rest of her life. But this isn't possible when the marriage has produced no children. In that case the woman returns to her father's house and is considered part of her family's tribe again, even if her husband had not been a priest.
If a person who was not allowed to eat the sacred offerings accidentally ate them, he could make restitution for his mistake and not be held accountable. "Anyone who eats a sacred offering by mistake must make restitution to the priests for the offering and add a fifth of the value to it." (Leviticus 22:14)
The priests are to take care not to allow situations to occur in which a person might unwittingly partake of these offerings. Priests are also not to knowingly allow an unauthorized person to partake of these offerings. "The priests must not desecrate the sacred offerings the Israelites present to the Lord by allowing them to eat the sacred offerings and so bring upon them guilt requiring payment. I am the Lord, who makes them holy." (Leviticus 22:15-16) The priests are held more accountable than the person who commits the infraction, for the priests are the ones in authority and the priests have been given a command by God not to share the sacred offerings with unauthorized persons. This is why when a priest knowingly allows an unauthorized person to eat this food, or when a priest is not careful to make certain this food is kept separate from that which is provided to guests and hired workers, the Lord says the priest is the one who "brings upon them guilt requiring payment".
There is an exception to this rule and it's illustrated in 1 Samuel 21 when David and his men are hungry and on the run from the wicked King Saul who wants to kill David. David approaches the priest Ahimelek to ask him for food for himself and his men. Ahimelek has nothing on hand except bread which has been offered to the Lord and he gives this consecrated bread to the men to sustain them. Certain laws and commandments can be temporarily set aside out of necessity when mercy needs to be extended.
For example, Jesus healed those who came to Him for help on the Sabbath and was accused of working on the Sabbath. He didn't deny this was a form of work but instead asked His enemies, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." (Matthew 12:11-12, Luke 14:5-6) Jesus was not breaking the law because the law regarding the Sabbath didn't apply when a person was in desperate need. In these same passages from Matthew and Luke we find Jesus speaking of the incident in which David was given consecrated bread by Ahimelek and He quoted Hosea 6:6 to back up his point. In Hosea 6:6 God says, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." In other words, the Lord would rather us love and help our neighbor than for us to strictly keep the regulations of the law if keeping the law prevents us from helping our neighbor.
A person can follow the law to the letter and yet break the spirit of the law by having no mercy on his fellow man. If he walks outside his door on the Sabbath and hears an injured neighbor calling for help, he'd be keeping the commandment regarding the Sabbath by not rendering aid. But he'd be breaking the spirit of the law which commands man to be merciful. In cases where a person's life or health is at stake (or even when an animal's life or health is at stake) it is permissible for a person to break the letter of the law in order to keep the spirit of the law.
The spirit of the law is love and Jesus kept the law of love by rendering aid on the Sabbath. You and I must take care not to become legalistic and lose sight of mercy. "The law is good if one uses it properly," (1 Timothy 1:8) but if we use the law as an excuse to withhold mercy from our fellow man, we have become lawbreakers for the Lord has clearly said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." The only time in the Bible we find Jesus issuing words of criticism is when He points out hypocrisy among the religious leaders who use the letter of the law to avoid keeping the spirit of the law. He finds many of them strictly adhering to rules and regulations while throwing mercy out the door. The law was given to man to demonstrate how man is to relate to His fellow man. These laws involved what to do: loving one's neighbor. And these laws involved what not to do: doing some sort of harm to one's neighbor (cheating him, stealing from him, causing him injury, failing to assist him in his hour of need, and so on). Love is to be at the heart of everything we do or else we've missed the whole point and have become hypocrites, "For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14)
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