This verse is said to be the most difficult one in the entire book of Leviticus. Any translation of these words must be considered a guess, because we really do not know for sure what they mean. The Revised Standard Version is a more or less literal rendering of the Hebrew text, but its questionable meaning reflects the difficulties in this verse. Even the ancient versions seem to have found this verse as difficult as modern scholars do.
The following interpretations have been given to these words:
1. The word translated husband may also be rendered “master,” “chief,” or “leader.” The ancient Latin version follows this understanding of the word. Living Bible has translated “For the priest is a leader among his people and he may not ceremonially defile himself as an ordinary person can.” This interpretation has also been followed by a number of French translations, including Bible en français courant, Traduction oecuménique de la Bible, and La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée.
2. Some scholars think that a word meaning “married to” has dropped out of the text and must be restored. According to this school of thought, this word appeared in the original text preceding the word husband. Together the two words would mean “for one married to a husband.” But the altered text is still subject to a variety of interpretations: New English Bible understands it to mean “nor shall he make himself unclean for any married woman among his father’s kin….” New American Bible reads “but for a sister who has married out of his family, he shall not make himself unclean….” And New Jerusalem Bible has rendered this passage “but for a close female relation who is married, he will not make himself unclean.” On the other hand, a number of modern versions take the expression in the more general sense “related to him by marriage” (New International Version, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, An American Translation, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
3. The ancient Greek version understood the questionable word to mean “suddenly” instead of husband. The text would then read “Among his kinsmen a priest must not suddenly make himself impure….” This is the reading recommended by HOTTP, but it is not followed by any major modern version.
It is probably best to follow the second option, with the more general interpretation yielding “related to him by marriage.” But whichever solution is adopted in the receptor-language translation, it will be wise to include a footnote explaining the difficulties of the text and the other possible renderings.
Profane himself: see 18.21.
Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .