Leviticus 22:10

No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired hand eat it.

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — God addresses Moses and Aaron, establishing ritual boundaries for the priestly line during tabernacle service. The instruction directly follows a warning that priests must guard these charges to avoid bearing guilt and death.

The words — זָר (zar) denotes a stranger or outsider, and קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh) means a holy thing or sacred offering. Together they frame the verse’s core restriction on who may consume consecrated food.

The thread — Exodus 29:33 explicitly applies the same prohibition to priests’ ordination offerings. 1 Samuel 21:6 records a priest giving David consecrated bread without citing any restriction. Matthew 12:4 observes that David’s consumption was technically unlawful for a non-priest.

Why it lands — The text explicitly bars non-priests, guests, and hired workers from sacred provisions, while reserving them for the priest’s household and his purchased or born slaves. It requires readers to recognize that ritual access is strictly bounded by lineage and household status.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

וְכָל־ve./kholand/ any זָ֖רzarstranger לֹא־lo'-not יֹ֣אכַלYo.khalhe will eat קֹ֑דֶשׁKo.desha holy thing תּוֹשַׁ֥בto.Shava resident alien of כֹּהֵ֛ןko.Hena priest וְשָׂכִ֖ירve./sa.Khirand/ a hired laborer לֹא־lo'-not יֹ֥אכַלYo.khalhe will eat קֹֽדֶשׁ׃Ko.desha holy thing

King James Version

There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.

Cross-references

1 Samuel 21:6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.
Matthew 12:4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to eat, but only for the priests.
Exodus 29:33 They must eat those things by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no outsider may eat them, because these things are sacred.