Regulations are next given for preserving the priesthood from defilement through coming in contact with the dead, and for removing such defilement in case of its having been contracted. As under the Law, so in the ideal constitution of Ezekiel, the priests should not be at liberty to contract ceremonial impurity through touching a corpse except in the case of near relations (comp.
Le Ezekiel 21:1-4). That neither in Leviticus nor in Ezekiel is the priest's wife among the excepted is surprising, and hardly to be explained, with Knobel, on the ground that a wife is not a blood-relation, since according to the Divine conception of marriage husband and wife are one (Genesis 2:24), but either by holding, with Keil, that the wife, who stands nearer her husband than any of the relatives named, was viewed as included under the phrase, "and for his kin that is near unto him" (Le Ezekiel 21:2), or by supposing it self-evident that such defilement could not be avoided in the case of a wife and was therefore tacitly allowed.
Smend, as usual, finds signs of Ezekiel's priority to the priest-code, first in the circumstance that Ezekiel regarded it as perfectly natural that a priest should sorrow for his wife (Ezekiel 24:15-18), which showed he had no acquaintance with Leviticus 21:1-24.
; and secondly, in the fact that Le Leviticus 21:11 prohibits absolutely to the high priest all contact with a corpse, which, it is argued, betrays a greater strictness than existed in the days of Ezekiel.
But as the prohibition in Le Ezekiel 21:11 applies only to the high priest, who in Ezekiel's temple has no place, an argument as to which of the books had priority of origin cannot properly be founded on so insecure a Basis.
Knobel remarks on Le Ezekiel 21:1-4 that "among the Greeks, priests and priestesses remained at a distance from funerals; while among the Romans ought the Flamen dialis to touch no corpse (Gell; 10.15), the augur perform no funeral rites (Tacit; 'Ann.
,' 1.31), and the pontifex accompany no funeral procession (Die Cass; 56.31); not at all should he behold a dead body (Serv; 'Ad AEn.,' 6.176),and in case he had occasion to pronounce a funeral oration, a curtain should hang between him and the corpse."
As to the cleansing of a defiled priest, that should be conducted in accordance with the customary regulations (comp. Numbers 19:1-22.),with this difference—that on the termination of the ordinary rites, which extended over seven days, an additional seven days, according to Havernick and Keil, should elapse, at the end of which, on the presentation of a sin offering, he should be restored to service in the inner sanctuary.