A BLEMISH — the chapter's own technical umbrella term for any physical condition disqualifying a priest from altar service (21:17-23): blindness, lameness, a mutilated face, a limb too long or broken, a hunchback, dwarfism, eye disease, skin disease, crushed testicles. ⚠ The same word governs sacrificial animals two chapters later (Leviticus 22:20-25, already on these pages) — the identical standard of physical wholeness applied to both the offering and the one who offers it. Critically, mum disqualifies a priest from APPROACHING the altar specifically (21:23) while explicitly leaving intact his standing as a priest and his right to eat the holy bread (21:22) — a distinction the text itself insists on, not a modern gloss added to soften it. → first discussed at Lev 21:17