Matthew Poole and continuators on Leviticus 16:4

4 He shall put on the holy linen coat , and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired. These are holy garments : therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.

It is observable that the High-priest did not now use his peculiar and glorious robes, but onely his linnen garments, which were common to him with the ordinary priests. The reason whereof was either because this was not a day of feasting and rejoycing, but of mourning and humiliation, at which times people were to lay aside their ornaments, Exod. 33. 5. Some conceive, that under the linen garments here named are comprehended his more glorious robes also by a Synecdoche. But that doth not appear neither from hence, nor from other places alledged. Had onely his holy garments been mentioned in general, all might have been understood, but when onely the linen apparel is mentioned here and after ver. 23. and when that is so particularly expressed in four several parts of it, and not a word of the other either here or in the rest of the chapter, it seems presumptuous to adde them here without any ground or evidence. Or because it was fit he should not exalt but abase himself, when he was to appear before the divine Majesty, and therefore he was to come in the meanest of his Priestly habits: Or that it might be an evidence of the imperfection of this Priesthood, and of the great difference between the Levitical, and the true, High-Priest Christ Jesus, whose prerogative alone it is to go into the true Holy of Holies with his glorious robes, when this must carry thither the characters of his meanness.

Because appropriated to an holy and religious use, for which reason other things are called holy. See Exod. 29. 31. and 30. 25. and 2 Chron. 5. 5.

Marginal references: Exod. 28. 39, 4[illegible: 1+ letters].; Exod▪ 30▪ [illegible: 1+ letters]0.