In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it: it shall be holy unto thee.
The verse belongs to the record of the institution of the Levitical priesthood, when the tribe of Levi was set apart from the other tribes for the service of the tabernacle and provision was made for the support of God's ministers by each member of the other tribes paying a tenth into the treasury, for the Lord gave the tithes of the children of Israel to the Levites to inherit because they were to have no inheritance in the land. It refers to the sanctuary Moses erected in the wilderness of Sinai 1490 years before Christ, with its ark of the covenant, mercy-seat and glorious Shekinah, constituting the heart and center of Israel's religious worship under that typical system. It calls the building God claimed as His dwelling place, where His service was performed, the sanctuary, one of fifty-six such uses during the forty years Israel journeyed in the wilderness, when the tabernacle was adapted to their wandering condition to be taken down and borne by the consecrated Levites and erected wherever the divine presence in a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night directed the camp to pitch.
It is included among the regulations assigning priests their share of offerings reserved from the altar, specifying that the holy portion is to be eaten in the most holy place and only by males, and that it is holy to the priestly household. It is part of the instructions that treat the tithe and offerings connected with sanctuary service as sacred and restrict their handling to the priests and Levites, with violation of these instructions carrying the penalty of death. It shows the tithe is designated as a heave-offering belonging to the service of the altar, so sacred that it was to be handled only by the priests, with the warning that others touching it were to be put to death.
It stands in the chapter containing the covenant of salt, which was a covenant ratified by the use of salt according to God's direction. It shows that certain offerings are called most holy, but that superlative does not make them more holy than the seventh-day Sabbath. The Sabbath is called holy and the offerings are called most holy with no comparison made between them, so no rank of holiness can be drawn from positive against superlative. The term most holy is not applied to the Sabbath because God has only one Sabbath, the seventh day which He blessed and sanctified and commanded to be kept holy, leaving no other Sabbaths for degrees of comparison, and the Sabbath is to be regarded as much more holy than the various things described as most holy.
The verse belongs to the record of the institution of the Levitical priesthood, when the tribe of Levi was set apart from the other tribes for the service of the tabernacle and provision was made for the support of God's ministers by each member of the other tribes paying a tenth into the treasury, for the Lord gave the tithes of the children of Israel to the Levites to inherit because they were to have no inheritance in the land. It refers to the sanctuary Moses erected in the wilderness of Sinai 1490 years before Christ, with its ark of the covenant, mercy-seat and glorious Shekinah, constituting the heart and center of Israel's religious worship under that typical system. It calls the building God claimed as His dwelling place, where His service was performed, the sanctuary, one of fifty-six such uses during the forty years Israel journeyed in the wilderness, when the tabernacle was adapted to their wandering condition to be taken down and borne by the consecrated Levites and erected wherever the divine presence in a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night directed the camp to pitch.
It is included among the regulations assigning priests their share of offerings reserved from the altar, specifying that the holy portion is to be eaten in the most holy place and only by males, and that it is holy to the priestly household. It is part of the instructions that treat the tithe and offerings connected with sanctuary service as sacred and restrict their handling to the priests and Levites, with violation of these instructions carrying the penalty of death. It shows the tithe is designated as a heave-offering belonging to the service of the altar, so sacred that it was to be handled only by the priests, with the warning that others touching it were to be put to death.
It stands in the chapter containing the covenant of salt, which was a covenant ratified by the use of salt according to God's direction. It shows that certain offerings are called most holy, but that superlative does not make them more holy than the seventh-day Sabbath. The Sabbath is called holy and the offerings are called most holy with no comparison made between them, so no rank of holiness can be drawn from positive against superlative. The term most holy is not applied to the Sabbath because God has only one Sabbath, the seventh day which He blessed and sanctified and commanded to be kept holy, leaving no other Sabbaths for degrees of comparison, and the Sabbath is to be regarded as much more holy than the various things described as most holy.