Leviticus 8:33

33 You must not go outside the entrance to the tent of meeting for seven days, until the time your days of ordination are completed, because it will take seven days to ordain you.^[a]

Leviticus 8:33 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 8:33

And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of
the congregation [in] seven days
Which was the time of their consecration, so long it lasted; and they had provision enough every day from the ram of consecration, whose flesh they were to boil and eat. The Jewish writers ^F3 are puzzled where they should ease nature, since the place was holy; but the orders are not to be considered as so strict but that they might go in and out, though they were not to stay long, or to attend to any other business; and it was always necessary there should be some upon the spot, keeping the Lord's charge in their turns; and it was always requisite that they should also sleep alternately; for it cannot be thought that they should be all this time without rest, any more than without food:

until the days of your consecration be at an end;
which were to continue so long:

for seven days shall he consecrate you;
that is, Moses, who here speaks of himself in the third person, as appears from ( Exodus 29:35 ) . Aben Ezra observes, that the word "end" is wanting, and that the sense is, at the end of seven days he shall consecrate you, finish their consecration; all the seven days he was doing it, and at the end of the seventh concluded it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 Aben Ezra, Hiscuni in loc.

Leviticus 8:33 In-Context

31 Moses said to Aaron and his sons, "Boil the meat at the entrance to the tent of meeting and eat it there with the bread that is in the basket for the ordination offering as I commanded: Aaron and his sons are to eat it.

32 You must burn up what remains of the meat and bread.

33 You must not go outside the entrance to the tent of meeting for seven days, until the time your days of ordination are completed, because it will take seven days to ordain you.

34 The Lord commanded what has been done today in order to make atonement for you.

35 You must remain at the entrance to the tent of meeting day and night for seven days and keep the Lord's charge so that you will not die, for this is what I was commanded."

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit because he will fill your hands for seven days