Commentary for Leviticus 21:14

וחללה OR A PROFANE [SHALL HE NOT TAKE] — i. e. a woman born from marriages forbidden to the priesthood alone (cf. v.7) (Sifra, Emor, Chapter 2 3).

כי אם בתולה מעמיו יקח אשה, “but he must take for a wife a virgin belonging to his own people.” These words are the definition of the previous והוא אשה בבתוליה יקח in verse 13. In other words, [if the High Priest was not yet married at the time he was appointed as such, a most unlikely scenario, Ed.] he is not allowed to marry a woman who has already had carnal relations with another man. Verse 13 is what is known as לאו הבא מכלל עשה, negative commandment arrived at by bringing it into line with an existing positive commandment. Now, by repeating the same concept as a positive commandment, it is much stronger. [The author understands the positive message in verse 13 as only an indirect prohibition to marry a woman no longer a virgin. Ed.]

כי עם בתולה מעמיו, “except for a virgin from his people.” Why is this verse necessary, seeing that it has just been written in verse 13 that he must marry a virgin? According to Kidushin 10 the repetition teaches that if the High Priest performed marital intercourse with his wife to be (by mutual consent) relying on this as the act acquiring her as his wife, this is not admissible in his case, [although a legal option to anyone else. Ed.] The reason for this is that halachically speaking, the completion of the act of coitus is when the acquisition becomes effective, i.e. a point in time when the girl in question is technically no longer a virgin. Technically she became a בעולת עצמו, a woman who had already had intercourse with the same man. A High Priest is forbidden to marry a בעולת עצמו no less than he is forbidden to marry someone who had had sexual relations with another male. This prohibition is known in the Talmud as לאו הבא מכלל עשה, “a negative commandment which is the logical result of a positive commandment related to the same subject.”