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LXX Leviticus

Septuagint

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Chapter 21

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and you shall tell them that they shall not defile themselves in their nation for the dead, 2 but they may mourn for a relative who is very near to them, for a father and mother, and sons and daughters, for a brother, 3 and for a virgin sister that is near to one, that is not engaged to a man; for these one shall defile himself. 4 He shall not defile himself suddenly among his people to profane himself. 5 And you shall not shave your head for the dead with a baldness on the top; and they shall not shave their beard, neither shall they make gashes on their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God; for they offer the sacrifices of the Lord as the gifts of their God, and they shall be holy. 7 They shall not take a woman who is a harlot and profaned, or a woman put away from her husband; for he is holy to the Lord his God. 8 And he shall hallow him; he offers the gifts of the Lord your God: he shall be holy, for I the Lord that sanctify them am holy. 9 And if the daughter of a priest should be profaned to engage in prostitution, she profanes the name of her father: she shall be burnt with fire. 10 And the priest that is chief among his brothers, the oil having been poured upon the head of the anointed one, and he having been consecrated to put on the garments, shall not take the turban off his head, and shall not tear his garments: 11 neither shall he go in to any dead body, neither shall he defile himself for his father or his mother. 12 And he shall not go forth out of the sanctuary, and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, because the holy anointing oil of God is upon him: I am the Lord. 13 He shall take for a wife a virgin⁠ of his own tribe. 14 But a widow, or one that is put away, or profaned, or a harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take for a wife a virgin of his own people. 15 And he shall not profane his seed among his people: I am the Lord that sanctifies him. 16 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 Say to Aaron, A man of your tribe throughout your generations, who shall have a blemish on him, shall not draw near to offer the gifts of his God. 18 No man who has a blemish on him shall draw near; a man lame, blind, with his nose disfigured, or his ears cut, 19 a man who has a broken hand or a broken foot, 20 or humpbacked, or blear-eyed, or that has lost his eye-lashes, or a man who has a malignant ulcer, or tetter, or one that has lost a testicle. 21 Whoever of the seed of Aaron the priest has a blemish on him, shall not draw near to offer sacrifices to your God, because he has a blemish on him; he shall not draw near to offer the gifts of God. 22 The gifts of God are most holy, and he shall eat of the holy things. 23 Only he shall not approach the veil, and he shall not draw near to the altar, because he has a blemish; and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, for I am the Lord that sanctifies them. 24 And Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel.

Texts in conversation

Compare Leviticus 21:13 and LXX Leviticus 21:13 and Philo, The Special Laws 1.110

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint · Classical

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Summary

Leviticus 21 limits the high priest to marrying a virgin, and the Greek Septuagint adds that she must be “from his people,” likely meaning a priestly family. This change harmonizes it with Hellenistic Jewish traditions, including those seen in Philo.

Passages

Leviticus 21:13

Hebrew Bible
12 He must not go out from the sanctuary and must not profane the sanctuary of his God, because the dedication of the anointing oil of his God is on him. I am the Lord. 13 He must take a wife who is a virgin. 14 He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or one profaned by prostitution; he may only take a virgin from his people as a wife,
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

LXX Leviticus 21:13

Septuagint
12 And he shall not go forth out of the sanctuary, and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, because the holy anointing oil of God is upon him: I am the Lord. 13 He shall take for a wife a virgin of his own tribe. 14 But a widow, or one that is put away, or profaned, or a harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take for a wife a virgin of his own people.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Leviticus

Philo, The Special Laws 1.110

Classical
110 And besides these commands, he also defined precisely the family of the women who might be married by the high priest, commanding him to marry not merely a woman who was a virgin, but also one who was a priestess, the daughter of a priest, so that both bridegroom and bride might be of one house, and in a sense of one blood, and so display a most lasting harmony and union of disposition during the whole of their lives.
20–50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Philo, The Special Laws

References

"... Greek Leviticus has numerous, mainly minor, pluses frequently in the Tetragrammaton to which θεός is added ... at 21:13 the Masoretic text has: “And he shall take a woman in her virginity”; Greek Leviticus adds “from his people.” This plus could indicate that a Priest may only take a wife from his own stock – the daughter of a Priestly family, as understood by Philo, The Special Laws 1.110 ..."
Moshe A. Zipor, “The Nature of the Septuagint Version of the Book of Leviticus,” in The Text of Leviticus: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthélemy Institute, ed. Innocent Himbaza (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 121–132.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Leviticus 21:13 and LXX Leviticus 21:13 and Philo, The Special Laws 1.110

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