² … he [the high priest] can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness; ³ and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.

Being a human being himself, the high priest could relate to the people he was representing before God. There is nothing worse than having an agent that has no sympathy or empathy for the person he represents. A lawyer who has lived in poverty can understand the plight of the poor, and strenuously and passionately advocate for them. Someone who has struggled with disability is in a much better position to advocate for other disabled people because he knows from experience what it is like to be discriminated against.

In the case of people’s sin, God set up the Levitical priesthood so that the advocates for them were not angels or some other unsympathetic beings. The advocates were to be just like the people they were to represent. The high priest, the ultimate agent of the people, was himself “beset with weakness.” He had his own need for sacrifice for sins. This was not a condescension of the holy, but a rising up from among the rank and file. Yes, the priests were held in high regard, but that is not as it should have been. The intention was that the priests were just like everyone else, in need of forgiveness of sin.

As one of them, the idea was that the priest would deal gently with the people. He was to know better than to act and think judgmentally of others, because he was no better than they. Yes, he may have spent more of his time contemplating spiritual matters, being involved in the sacrificial system day by day. Yes, he had the privilege of entering into the tabernacle (initially and later the temple). And the people tended to elevate the priests to a higher class. But, they were men, Jews just like everyone else. They were not above the Levitical priesthood system; they were in need of it just the same as others.

Notice, the gentle dealing was intended for sin resulting from ignorance or misguidance about what God expects. But for those sins that were an expression of conscious defiance, there was no gentleness. As Moses pointed out, “The man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel” (Deut 17:12). King David was guilty of such sin (2 Sam 11-12) for he knowingly disobeyed God in the Bathsheba and Uriah incident. The Levitical system only went so far in dealing with sin. There must be another way. That’s where the writer of Hebrews is leading us.