John Calvin Commentary Leviticus 22:1

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying," — Leviticus 22:1 (ASV)

And the Lord spoke to Moses. Moses here discusses the circumstances by which pollution is contracted, even if a man is naturally pure and sound. If any suffered from natural defects, Moses prohibited them from exercising the priestly office. Now, if any external pollution might have affected a priest, he commands him to abstain from his duties until he has been purified.

He had already commanded that any unclean person should be separated from the people to prevent their contagion from infecting others. It might therefore seem superfluous to prescribe to the priests what had been universally enjoined.

But men in positions of honor are often likely to abuse God's favor as a pretext for sin. Therefore, to prevent the priestly dignity from being used as a cover for indulging in or excusing scandals, it was necessary to establish a specific law. This law ensured that priests could not plead their privilege to eat the sacrifices in their uncleanness—sacrifices which only the clean were permitted to offer.

And to make their sacrilege even more detestable, He declares death against any who would bring their pollutions into the sacrifices. For it was necessary to motivate by the fear of punishment and, as it were, to compel by force to their duty those who would not otherwise have been restrained by any religious reverence from making God's service contemptible.

He then lists the particular kinds of pollution of which we have spoken before. From this it appears that the priests were disciplined by this law, so that they would not think themselves more free than the rest of the people and thus indulge themselves in a false sense of security.

This is later more clearly expressed where God admonishes them to keep his ordinance¹⁹⁴ (Leviticus 22:9)—that is, diligently to observe whatever He commanded. Indeed, the greater the dignity with which He had honored them, the greater should be their dedication to persevere in the practices of piety. For He shows them that, far from their priestly rights leading to a lessening of their sin, they were even more strongly bound by these rights to keep the Law.

¹⁹⁴ Lat., “Custodiant custodiam meam.” .” Ainsworth, “Keep my charge."Keep my charge."