Leviticus 21:4

being a chief man as a husband (R.V. mg.). This rendering limits the cases in which defilement is permissible to those already mentioned, and forbids mourning for a wife. The A.V. follows the Targum.

The wording of the v.suggests a corruption in the text. The Sept. substitute (see R.V. mg.) for -a chief man" is apparently obtained by a transposition in Heb. consonants, but fails to convey any clear meaning. It has been suggested, by a somewhat greater modification in the Heb., to read in mourning. Baentsch (HG.111A) considers that the words -defile himself" and -among his people" shew that the v.forms an intimate part of the prohibition contained in the previous vv.Inasmuch, then, as the word rendered -chief man" is regularly used of a husband, and as mention of a wife is strangely absent from the MT., he proposes either of two alternative readings, which assume a copyist's accidental omission of a word or words, expressing wife; so that the precept originally ran, a husband shall not be defiled for his wife. It is, however, difficult, as Dillm. says, to suppose, in the face of the opening words of Leviticus 21:2, that a priest whose wife died was forbidden to approach the body.