Neither shall he go in to any dead body
That is, into a tent or house where any dead body lies, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra interpret it, for whoever went into such a place was unclean seven days; and so long therefore an high priest, should he enter there, would be prevented doing the duty of his office, see ( Numbers 19:14 ) ; this was aped and followed by the Heathens in later times; so among the Romans, the "Flamen Dialis", or high priest of Jupiter, might not go into a place where a dead body was burnt or buried, nor touch any F8; and it was a custom with them, as Servius F9 tells us, to put a branch of cypress at the door of a house where a dead body was, that an high priest might not enter through ignorance, and be defiled: nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
by entering into the tent or house where they lay dead, or by touching them, or attending the funeral of them, or by concerning himself about it; and there was no need to mention his son or his daughter, his brother or his sister; for if he was not to defile himself for any of his parents, much less for any of those which are excepted in the case of a common priest, ( Leviticus 21:2 Leviticus 21:3 ) ; the Jews do indeed make one exception in the case of an high priest, and that is, that if he meets with a dead body in the way, he was obliged to defile himself for it and bury it F11; and so among the Romans, though it was a crime for an high priest to look upon a dead body, yet it was reckoned a greater, if, when he saw it, he left it unburied F12.