(11) And he shall put off his garments.--That is, the priest shall change the sacred robes in which he ministered at the altar; for other garments, though less holy, were not common, since the removing of the ashes was still a sacerdotal function. The holy garments were deposited in the cells within the precincts of the sanctuary, till they were required again for the altar service (Ezekiel 44:19; Ezra 2:6; Ezra 2:9; Nehemiah 7:70). Great care was taken that the place to which the ashes were removed was well sheltered, so that the wind should not blow them about. The priest was not allowed to scatter them, but had to deposit them gently. No stranger was permitted to gather them, or to make profit by the ashes.

6:8-13 The daily sacrifice of a lamb is chiefly referred to. The priest must take care of the fire upon the altar. The first fire upon the altar came from heaven, ch. 9:24; by keeping that up continually, all their sacrifices might be said to be consumed with the fire from heaven, in token of God's acceptance. Thus should the fire of our holy affections, the exercise of our faith and love, of prayer and praise, be without ceasing.And he shall put off his garments,.... Those before mentioned, he is said to put on:

and put on other garments; not common garments or lay-habits, what the priests wore when they were not on duty; for, as Ben Gersom says, these were priestly garments, though meaner than the first, or those that were put off: and so Jarchi says, they were worse than they were: it seems as if they were such that were spotted and dirty, and threadbare, almost worn out, and only fit for such sort of work as to carry out ashes: and so Maimonides (w) observes, that these other garments are not to be understood of common garments; but of such that are meaner in value and esteem, for both are holy garments; and, indeed, nothing belonging to the priestly office was to be performed but with the priestly garments, and they were only to be worn by the priests while in service:

and carry forth the ashes; when these, gathered on a heap, were become large, as Jarchi says, and there was no room for the pile of wood, they carried them out from thence; and this, he observes, was not obligatory every day, but the taking of them up, as in the preceding verse Leviticus 6:10, they were bound to every day: and these they carried

without the camp, unto a clean place; for though they were ashes, yet being ashes of holy things, were not to be laid in an unclean place, or where unclean things were: as the burnt offering was a type of Christ in his sufferings and death, enduring the fire of divine wrath in the room and stead of his people; so the carrying forth the ashes of the burnt offering, and laying them in a clean place, may denote the burial of the body of Christ without the city of Jerusalem, wrapped in a clean linen cloth and laid in a new tomb, wherein no man had been laid, Matthew 27:59.

(w) In Misn. Tamid, c. 5. sect. 3.