and to regulate their proximity. Duke’s summary (2003: 654) captures well the two-way role of priests and the terminology surrounding them: Only the priests, who were specially sanctified, could step carefully into that gap and mediate between the divine and human realms. Through their instructions and rituals, the priests warned Israel how its waywardness, intentional and unintentional, polluted God’s dwelling and hindered God’s presence in their covenant relationship … God had provided the means