Leviticus 10--The Death of Nadab and Abihu

Leviticus 10
English Standard Version

The Death of Nadab and Abihu
10 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

4 And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come near; carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp.” 5 So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said. 6 And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his sons, “Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that the Lord has kindled. 7 And do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.

8 And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, 9 “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.”

12 Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his surviving sons: “Take the grain offering that is left of the Lord's food offerings, and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. 13 You shall eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons' due, from the Lord's food offerings, for so I am commanded. 14 But the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed you shall eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you, for they are given as your due and your sons' due from the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the people of Israel. 15 The thigh that is contributed and the breast that is waved they shall bring with the food offerings of the fat pieces to wave for a wave offering before the Lord, and it shall be yours and your sons' with you as a due forever, as the Lord has commanded.”

​16 Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up! And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the surviving sons of Aaron, saying, 17 “Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord? 18 Behold, its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary. You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.” 19 And Aaron said to Moses, “Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, and yet such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the Lord have approved?” 20 And when Moses heard that, he approved.

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This is a sad time, but there is a very important lesson here for all of us in the Church who are called to be members of the royal priesthood.  Two of Aaron's sons die here because they do not follow the instructions of the LORD on how and when to offer incense in their censers.  We'll see another time coming up in the book of Numbers where some others who were not the sons of Aaron also tried to offer incense to the LORD and were destroyed as well.  Offering "false fire" to the LORD was something serious--God dictate the terms of exactly how He was to be worshiped and there was to be no deviation from that prescription.

It would be normal for the family, especially the parents to question why God allowed this to happen and to want to take some time to mourn and grieve, but God gave specific instructions to Aaron and his other sons to neither say anything against the LORD or to leave the tent of meeting to mourn and that they must continue their work for the people--they were to let the people mourn for them.  Nothing, not even the death of our children is to stop us from performing the work that God has called us to do and we are not to mourn as those who have no hope--like those who cling to this world because that's all that they know.  God warned the priests that if they did these things that they would be preaching something false by their actions to the people and then the anger of the LORD would burn against them.

We then see some very important instructions that God gives Moses to give to Aaron and his sons.  They were to never drink wine (this is probably a prohibition on consuming any alcohol) while they were serving the LORD in the Tabernacle.  Alcohol was mixed with worship of false gods (I'm sure you've heard of "drunken orgies") and that was never supposed to be what people thought about the ministers of the LORD--they were not to look like or act like the priests of the false gods, and they were always to be sober and sober-minded to be careful to do everything exactly as the LORD had commanded.

They were to be careful to distinguish between that which was holy (for the LORD's service) and that which was common, and never use that which was holy for common things or vice-versa.  Failure to do so would lead to certain death for them.  Likewise, they were to be careful to distinguish between the clean and the unclean and they were to be careful to teach the statutes of the LORD (we'll see more of this in the book of Deuteronomy when we get there, but we've seen some of it already in Exodus and Leviticus and we'll see come more in Leviticus as we go along) to make sure that they people obeyed and would not incur God's wrath--remember that the commands and statutes of the LORD were meant to show people the gospel and point them towards Christ (even though they wouldn't know His name as Jesus, they would understand that there was a Redeemer (like Job) and that there was Deliverer and one who would have to come to "save His people from their sins.")

Then God told Moses and Aaron and his two remaining sons, Eleazer (who would succeed Aaron as high priest) and Ithamar, to make sure to eat their portion of the grain offering unleavened and to eat it in a holy place beside the altar--it is most holy and only meant for the priests and their sons.  Then instructions were given regarding the breast and the thigh that were the priest's portions of the fellowship/peace offerings.  They were to eat these with their families including their wives, sons and daughters in a place that was clean (this probably speaks to both cleanliness and ceremonially clean as it was something holy and not "common" as we discussed before).

The end of this passage may seem a bit confusing, but think about it in terms of when we take Communion today in our churches.  We are told to be careful to not eat the bread or drink the cup in an unworthy manner least we become sick or even die.  This seems to be Aarons argument on why he and his sons did not eat of the goat of the sin offering that was meant for them because they felt that they too had sinned and were not worth to eat of the offering as they were not pure before the LORD.  Moses did say though that it was important for them to participate in this as it was part of the atonement process for the people as the sin of the people was laid on the goat and then the priests would eat of the sacrifice symbolically taking the sin upon themselves.  We often miss this, but this is such a powerful picture of the work of Christ that we see Him taking our sin upon Himself.  We will also see Moses cry out to God in this way that the sins and iniquities of the people be put onto his account so that he would be damned and they would be saved.  God explains that can't happen because Moses himself is guilty, but it one of the great pictures that we see of the gospel in the Old Testament through the world of the Levitical priesthood in that they bore the sins of the people upon themselves, possibly even believing that they would be condemned so that the rest of the nation could be saved, but that in order to do so, they must be pure themselves for how can someone who is guilty make any atonement for others who are guilty?  Again, that seems to be what Aaron and his sons are saying here, but God doesn't let it simply slide--He continues to call them to be holy so that they can continue to make atonement for the people of God.