Leviticus 10:6

And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Uncover not your heads.—Better, let not your heads be dishevelled. It was the custom for mourners to let their hair grow long, and let it fall in a disorderly and wild manner over the head and face. (See Leviticus 13:45; Leviticus 21:10; 2Samuel 15:30; 2Samuel 19:4, &c.) For this reason the priests who are consecrated to the service of the Lord are even on ordinary occasions not to shave their heads nor suffer their locks to grow long. (Ezekiel 44:20.) On this occasion more especially Aaron and his two surviving sons are forbidden to give way to these manifestations of grief, since it might be considered as a reflection upon the justice of the punishment.

Neither rend your clothes.—This was another ordinary manifestation of sorrow and mourning. (See Genesis 37:29; Genesis 37:34; Joshua 7:6; 2Samuel 13:21, &c.) To this day the Jews observe this custom of mourning for the death of their near relations; they tear their garments, let their hair and nails grow, and do not wash.

And lest wrath come upon all the people.—The transgression of this command would not only bring down upon Aaron and his sons the same awful judgment, but would expose the whole community to the Divine wrath. In virtue of the intimate connection which subsisted between the representative of the nation and the people, a sin committed by the high priest in his official position involved the whole community, and they had to share the consequences of the offence. (See Leviticus 4:3.)

But let your brethren.—The afflicted relatives were, however, not to be deprived of all the customary expressions of mourning. The whole house of Israel, who are here designedly called “the brethren” of the bereaved, to show the depth of their sympathy, were allowed to mourn over the great calamity which had thus befallen them.

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 10:6. Uncover not your heads — That is, give no signification of your sorrow; mourn not for them; partly lest you should seem to justify your brethren, and tacitly reflect upon God as too severe; and partly lest thereby you should be diverted from, or disturbed, in your present service, which God expects to be done cheerfully. But let the whole house of Israel bewail the burning — Not so much in compassion to them, as in sorrow for the tokens of divine displeasure.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:3-7 The most quieting considerations under affliction are fetched from the word of God. What was it that God spake? Though Aaron's heart must have been filled with anguish and dismay, yet with silent submission he revered the justice of the stroke. When God corrects us or ours for sin, it is our duty to accept the punishment, and say, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. Whenever we worship God, we come nigh unto him, as spiritual priests. This ought to make us very serious in all acts of devotion. It concerns us all, when we come nigh to God, to do every religious exercise, as those who believe that the God with whom we have to do, is a holy God. He will take vengeance on those that profane his sacred name by trifling with him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Aaron and his two surviving sons are forbidden to show the accustomed signs of mourning, or to leave the court of the tabernacle in order to attend the funeral, because, from their office, they were especially concerned as consecrated priests in outwardly maintaining the honor of Yahweh. They were to bear visible testimony to the righteousness of the punishment of Nadab and Abihu. The people, on the other hand, as not formally standing so near to Yahweh, were permitted to "bewail" as an acknowledgment that the nation had a share in the sin of its priests. (Compare 1 Corinthians 12:26.)

Leviticus 10:6

Uncover not your heads - Or, "set free ... let go loose." It was a custom to let the hair grow long and fall loosely over the head and face Leviticus 13:45; 2 Samuel 15:30; 2 Samuel 19:4; and the substance of the command would thus be that they should not let the hair go disheveled. Ripping the clothes in front so as to lay open the breast was one of the most common manifestations of grief (see Genesis 37:29; Genesis 44:13; 2 Samuel 1:11; Job 1:20; Joel 2:13, etc.). The garments as well as the persons of the priests were consecrated; this appears to be the reason of the prohibition of these ordinary signs of mourning. Compare Leviticus 20:10.

Lest ye die - See Exodus 28:35 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Uncover not your heads—They who were ordered to carry out the two bodies, being engaged in their sacred duties, were forbidden to remove their turbans, in conformity with the usual customs of mourning; and the prohibition "neither rend your garments," was, in all probability, confined also to their official costume. For at other times the priests wore the ordinary dress of their countrymen and, in common with their families, might indulge their private feelings by the usual signs or expressions of grief.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Uncover not your heads; either,

1. By putting off your mitres and bonnets, or ornaments, and going bare-headed, as mourners sometimes did. See Leviticus 13:45 Ezekiel 24:17,23. Or,

2. By shaving off the hair of your heads and beards, as mourners did. See Job 1:20 Jeremiah 7:29 41:5 Ezekiel 44:20 Micah 1:16. This latter may seem to be principally intended,

1. Because this ceremony of uncovering the head being used by the people as well as by the priests in case of mourning, as the places now alleged show; and the other ceremony here joined with it, of rending the clothes, being also common to the people; seems to imply that he speaks not of that uncovering of the head which was peculiar to the priests, but of that which was common both to priests and people, especially seeing that which is here forbidden to these priests is in the following words allowed to the people, to

bewail their death, which as at other times it was, so now probably might be performed by these same ceremonies.

2. Because the high priest is forbidden to uncover his head in way of mourning for the dead, not only at that time when he was in actual ministration, but at all times, even when he had neither his mitre nor any of the holy garments upon him, Leviticus 21:10.

Neither rend your clothes; give no signification of your sorrow; mourn not for them; partly lest you should seem to justify and approve of your brethren, and tacitly reflect upon God as too severe in his proceedings with them; and partly lest thereby you should be diverted from or disturbed in your present service, which God expects should be done cheerfully.

But let your brethren...bewail the burning, not so much in compassion to them against whom God hath showed such great and just indignation, as in sorrow for the tokens of Divine displeasure.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar, and unto Ithamar, his sons,.... His two younger sons, which yet remained; and so the Septuagint version adds, as in Leviticus 10:12.

uncover not your heads; that is, do not take off your mitre, as the Septuagint version; or the bonnets which they wore in the time of their ministry; for the Jewish priests always had their mitres and bonnets on when they sacrificed; in imitation of which, the Heathens had their heads covered when they offered their sacrifices (k): now it was the way, or custom of a mourner, as Ben Melech observes, to remove his mitre, bonnet, or tiara, from his head; but in this case, that no sign of mourning might be shown, Aaron and his sons are forbid to uncover the head: the Targum of Onkelos is,"do not increase the hair,''or nourish it, or suffer it to grow, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom interpret it: now in times of distress and mourning they used to let the hair grow, whether on the head or beard, see 2 Samuel 19:24 and in this the Jews were imitated by the Egyptians, contrary to other nations; the priests of the gods in other places, says Herodotus (l), took care of their hair (or wore their hair), in Egypt they are shaved; with others the custom is, for the head immediately to be shaved at funerals; but the Egyptians, at death, suffer their hair to grow in the parts before shaved; but this custom with the Jews, though at other times used, is here forbid Aaron and his sons:

neither rend your clothes, which was sometimes done at the report of the death of near relations, as children, in token of mourning, Genesis 37:34 but here it is forbid, that there might be no sign of it: it is a particular word that is here used: Ben Melech says, there is a difference between rending and tearing; tearing is in the body of a garment where there is no seam, but rending (which is what is here meant) where there is a seam: the priests rending their garments was after this manner, according to the Jewish canons (m),"an high priest rends below and a common priest above;''that is, as one of their commentators (n) interprets it, the former rends the extreme part of his garment next the feet, and the latter at the breast near the shoulder; but in this case no rent at all was to be made:

lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people; so very provoking to God would be any signs of mourning in Aaron and his sons, on this account:

but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled: though Aaron and his sons might not mourn on this occasion, the whole body of the people might, though not bewail so much the death of the persons, as the cause of it; and be concerned for the awful judgment of God, and for the wrath that was sone forth, lest it should proceed and destroy others also, all being sinners.

(k) "Purpureo velare comas", &c. Virgil. Aeneid. l. 3. Vid. Kipping. Rom. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 12. sect. 17. p. 495. (l) Euterpe sive, l. 2. c. 36. (m) Misn. Horayot, c. 3. sect. 5. (n) Bartenora in ib.

Geneva Study Bible

And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, {c} Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath {d} kindled.

(c) As though you lamented for them, preferring your carnal affection to God's just judgment; Le 19:18, De 14:1.

(d) In destroying Nadab and Abihu the chief, and menacing the rest, unless they repent.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. The ordinary priest might defile himself for those near of kin (Leviticus 21:2) but the high priest was not allowed to do so (Leviticus 21:11). On this occasion Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar were all subject to the stricter rule. The whole house of Israel joined in the mourning.

Let not the hair of your heads go loose] It was said to Ezekiel when forbidden to mourn, ‘bind thy headtire upon thee’ (Ezekiel 24:17). On removing the headtire the hair would fall down, so that the prohibition ‘Uncover not your heads’ (A.V.), is in effect the same. To let the hair loose and to rend the garments were and still are signs of mourning among the Jews and Eastern nations.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Uncover not your heads. They are to abstain from all the conventional signs of mourning, in order to show that they acknowledged the justice of the punishment. The whole house of Israel, that is, the people in general, might mourn the death of their priests, but the high priest and his remaining sons must prove their submission to the Divine chastisement by crushing their individual feelings of sorrow. A murmur on their part would have brought God's wrath on themselves and on the whole congregation, which they represented (Leviticus 4:3). Uncover not your heads may be otherwise translated, Let not your hair fall disheveled (see Leviticus 21:10). Leviticus 10:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Moses prohibited Aaron and his remaining sons from showing any sign of mourning on account of this fatal calamity. "Uncover not your heads," i.e., do not go about with your hair dishevelled, or flowing free and in disorder (Leviticus 13:45). ראשׁ פּרע does not signify merely uncovering the head by taking off the head-band (lxx, Vulg., Kimchi, etc.), or by shaving off the hair (Ges. and others; see on the other hand Knobel on Leviticus 21:10), but is to be taken in a similar sense ראשׁו שׂער פּרע, the free growth of the hair, not cut short with scissors (Numbers 6:5; Ezekiel 44:20). It is derived from פּרע, to let loose from anything (Proverbs 1:25; Proverbs 4:5, etc.), to let a people loose, equivalent to giving them the reins (Exodus 32:25), and signifies solvere crines, capellos, to leave the hair in disorder, which certainly implies the laying aside of the head-dress in the case of the priest, though without consisting in this alone. On this sign of mourning among the Roman and other nations, see M. Geier de Ebraeorum luctu viii. 2. The Jews observe the same custom still, and in times of deep mourning neither wash themselves, nor cut their hair, nor pare their nails (see Buxtorf, Synog. jud. p. 706). They were also not to rend their clothes, i.e., not to make a rent in the clothes in front of the breast-a very natural expression of grief, by which the sorrow of the heart was to be laid bare, and one which was not only common among the Israelites (Genesis 37:29; Genesis 44:13; 2 Samuel 1:11; 2 Samuel 3:31; 2 Samuel 13:31), but was very widely spread among the other nations of antiquity (cf. Geier l.c. xxii. 9). פּרם, to rend, occurs, in addition to this passage, in Leviticus 13:45; Leviticus 21:10; in other places פרע, to tear in pieces, is used. Aaron and his sons were to abstain from these expressions of sorrow, "lest they should die and wrath come upon all the people." Accordingly, we are not to seek the reason for this prohibition merely in the fact, that they would defile themselves by contact with the corpses, a reason which afterwards led to this prohibition being raised into a general law for the high priest (Leviticus 21:10-11). The reason was simply this, that any manifestation of grief on account of the death that had occurred, would have indicated dissatisfaction with the judgment of God; and Aaron and his sons would thereby not only have fallen into mortal sin themselves, but have brought down upon the congregation the wrath of God, which fell upon it through every act of sin committed by the high priest in his official position (Leviticus 4:3). "Your brethren, (namely) the whole house of Israel, may bewail this burning" (the burning of the wrath of Jehovah). Mourning was permitted to the nation, as an expression of sorrow on account of the calamity which had befallen the whole nation in the consecrated priests. For the nation generally did not stand in such close fellowship with Jehovah as the priests, who had been consecrated by anointing.