Leviticus 21 restricts which priests may serve at the altar. The Targum Jonathan expands the list of disqualifying blemishes with clinical precision that goes well beyond the Hebrew Bible's general categories.
A priest who is blind, lame, or "stricken in his nostrils" cannot serve. The Targum adds: "mutilated in his thigh," a priest "whose eyelids droop so as to cover his eyes," one "who hath no hair on his eyelids," or one with "a suffusion of whiteness with darkness in his eyes." The Hebrew lists about eight blemishes. The Targum provides a detailed ophthalmological catalog, as though written for a medical examiner screening priestly candidates.
But here is the compassionate detail: a blemished priest was not expelled. He could still "support himself with the residue of the oblations of his God which remaineth of the most holy and of the holy offerings." He ate the sacred food. He was part of the priestly class. He simply could not approach the altar or enter beyond the veil. The Targum preserves dignity within exclusion.
The high priest's restrictions are even more severe. God demanded absolute ritual purity from the man who stood between heaven and Israel. He cannot uncover his head, tear his garments "in the hour of grief," or defile himself even for his own parents. His wife must be a virgin—specifically, "not a widow, or a divorced person, or one who was born of depraved parents, or who hath gone astray by fornication." The Targum's list is longer than the Hebrew's, blocking multiple categories of women.
A priest's betrothed daughter who commits fornication "while she is yet in her father's house" faces burning. The Targum adds the condition of betrothal, distinguishing her case from a married woman's. The priestly family was held to a standard where proximity to holiness intensified both privilege and punishment.