1 - 3 Strange Fire Offered
1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
2 And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the LORD spoke, saying,
‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy,
And before all the people I will be honored.’”
So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
After the ordination of the priesthood and the bringing of the first offerings and the joy that it has given, an anticlimax follows immediately in this chapter. In the last verse of the previous chapter fire descends upon the altar and all fall on their faces to worship. Here the same fire descends and kills the two oldest sons of Aaron. Thus, on the day of Pentecost the Spirit comes down to testify of the acceptance of the offering of Christ by God, showing Himself as “tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:2-3a). A little later the Spirit is a Spirit of judgment for Ananias and Sapphira, who worship God with the strange fire of their corrupt hearts (Acts 5:5a,10a).
It concerns the two most chosen men on earth: from the chosen people, the chosen tribe, the chosen family, of which the eldest son is the successor of his father as high priest. They occupy the highest position. They have been privileged to climb up to the LORD with Moses (Exo 24:1). It is precisely their privileged position that makes their offence so serious. God wants to be treated as holy in those who come near Him (verse 3; cf. Eze 9:6; 1Pet 4:17a). The transgression of what God has commanded always has serious consequences, especially for those who are supposed to know His commandments. This is also experienced by David when, against the LORD’s commandment, he has the ark transported on a new cart (2Sam 6:3-9).
What is happening here reflects a principle that we have already noted. This principle is that man always almost immediately corrupts what God gives him in goodness. We see here a repetition of what Adam does when he enjoys all that God has created for him. Within a short time, he forfeited its blessing by disobedience to God’s commandment. We also see it with Noah, who is given authority over a cleansed earth. He is not capable of authority over himself. Later in case of the kingship we see the same thing. And also the church has not remained in the blessings she initially enjoys, but becomes unfaithful and connects with the world.
What is wrong with Nadab and Abihu is not that they do what God has forbidden, but that they do what He has not commanded them to do. They do not violate any particular commandment, but act as they deem appropriate. According to the norms of the world, they do not revolt against God. They want to serve God. But they do so in a way that is different from what God has made known about it. They use their own fire, not the fire that God has sent down on the altar.
The conduct of Nadab and Abihu speaks of the introduction of strange, self-created elements in worship. They can be elements from Jewish worship, or practical elements, but it is strange fire, it does not belong in the service God wishes. It is the religion of the flesh. In professing Christianity, this was soon the case. The priesthood in professing Christianity is spiritually dead by strange fire. Whoever wants to remain free from it, will have to be subjected to the searching of God’s Word (Lev 8:35).
Aaron keeps silent. It is a telling reaction. God’s intervention does not evoke any resistance in him. He acknowledges with his silence that there is nothing to excuse. We can learn this from Aaron’s attitude: if God judges, it suits us to remain silent. The elders do the same when Nehemiah is angry with them because of their behavior (Neh 5:8).
4 - 7 Reaction of Moses
4 Moses called also to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come forward, carry your relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to the outside of the camp.” 5 So they came forward and carried them still in their tunics to the outside of the camp, as Moses had said. 6 Then Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, so that you will not die and that He will not become wrathful against all the congregation. But your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, shall bewail the burning which the LORD has brought about. 7 You shall not even go out from the doorway of the tent of meeting, or you will die; for the LORD’s anointing oil is upon you.” So they did according to the word of Moses.
Moses takes action. This event must not endanger the priesthood. Aaron and his sons may have the thought: The priesthood is too risky; we are not starting with it. God does not want that. He wants the priesthood to be maintained and that failing priests be dealt with in accordance with His holiness. The remaining brothers are not allowed to touch their brothers. When they do, they become defiled and unfit for the priesthood. They also are not allowed to show any signs of mourning.
Two of Aaron’s nephews, Mishael and Elzaphan, are ordered to carry away the dead bodies. In the family line they are further away from the killed priests and will not so quickly in their emotion come to a wrong action. It is important, for example, that in a case of discipline, we should not be guided by certain feelings of connection to persons who have done something that should be disciplined. These may be literal family ties, but also people who have meant a lot to us spiritually.
All close ties should not play a role in things God has judged. If we allow these ties to play a role, then our own priestly service ‘dies’. That is why it is wise, in a disciplinary case, for the immediate family to keep their distance. If close relatives do interfere, there is a danger that they will become unfit to perform priestly services, and God does not want that.
That does not mean that we are called upon to be insensitive. The people may mourn. As ordinary members of God’s people, we will experience the death of a priest as sorrowful. But the priesthood must not be omitted “for the LORD’s anointing oil is upon you”. God desires that we approach Him with a sincere heart as priests to worship Him (Heb 10:19-22).
8 - 11 No Wine or Strong Drink for Priests
8 The LORD then spoke to Aaron, saying, 9 “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die—it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations— 10 and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them through Moses.”
The ban on the use of wine or strong drink follows immediately on bringing foreign fire. This gives substance to the idea that Nadab and Abihu may have come to their actions by using wine or strong drink. Wine and strong drink fog the mind. Israelites are allowed to use it, but Aaron and his sons, the priests, are not. When entering in the presence of God, worldly influences should not play a role. Otherwise our view of the distinction between holy and profane, between what is of God and what is not of Him, fades. The call in Ephesians 5 is in line with this (Eph 5:18).
The natural blessings, of which wine is a picture, come from God. They are good. But they should not play a role in worship. It is like the honey that should not be present in the grain offering (Lev 2:11). Natural things easily extinguish the working of the Spirit. Wine and strong drink can be seen in the use of compelling music or pompous rhetoric. They fog the thoughts and easily distract from the goal of glorifying God.
12 - 15 What Is for the Priests
12 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, “Take the grain offering that is left over from the LORD’s offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. 13 You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due out of the LORD’s offerings by fire; for thus I have been commanded. 14 The breast of the wave offering, however, and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you; for they have been given as your due and your sons’ due out of the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the sons of Israel. 15 The thigh offered by lifting up and the breast offered by waving they shall bring along with the offerings by fire of the portions of fat, to present as a wave offering before the LORD; so it shall be a thing perpetually due you and your sons with you, just as the LORD has commanded.”
After the negative, what the priests are not allowed to take – wine and strong drink – now comes the positive, which the priests are allowed to take. They may eat of the grain offering (verses 12-13), of the peace offering (verses 14-15) and of the sin offering (verses 16-20). Priestly service cannot consist solely of abstaining from things. It is a (negative) condition, but not enough. To be able to offer, we must feed on what we offer.
Eating is having fellowship in the most intimate way. Eating takes place in “a holy place” (verse 13), that is, in the presence of God, before His face, in His presence. The priests eat the grain offering. For us it means that we ‘eat’ from the Lord Jesus as the perfect Man on earth, where He is perfect to the glory of God. We also ‘eat’, together with God’s people, of the strength and love with which the Lord Jesus accomplished the work, respectively the thigh and the breast of the peace offering.
16 - 20 Eating the Sin Offering
16 But Moses searched carefully for the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up! So he was angry with Aaron’s surviving sons Eleazar and Ithamar, saying, 17 “Why did you not eat the sin offering at the holy place? For it is most holy, and He gave it to you to bear away the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD. 18 Behold, since its blood had not been brought inside, into the sanctuary, you should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, just as I commanded.” 19 But Aaron spoke to Moses, “Behold, this very day they presented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD. When things like these happened to me, if I had eaten a sin offering today, would it have been good in the sight of the LORD?” 20 When Moses heard [that], it seemed good in his sight.
The sin offering is also food for the priest. Eleazar and Ithamar seem to have been negligent here. They had to eat from it, but did not. Not only did the two eldest sons fail, but Aaron and the two surviving sons also failed. The eldest sons acted in their own will. This is not the case with Aaron and the other sons; they act out of weakness. Their excuse is therefore accepted by Moses.
A priest should not only burn another person’s sin offering on the altar. In some cases he also has to eat from it. For us, this means that a spiritually-minded believer, someone who does priestly service, should not only lead a fellow believer to confession of guilt. In addition, he must also eat from the sin offering, that is to say, he must spiritually empathize with what the Lord Jesus had to suffer for that sin, what it cost Him to bear the punishment for it.
Aaron and his sons burned the sin offering, but did not eat it. It indicates the weakness that is also found in us. It is also often easier for us to point out a sin to someone than to penetrate the feelings of the Lord Jesus and to identify ourselves, as it were, with that sin. Aaron admits his weakness. God has understanding and indulgence for this (cf. Heb 5:1-2), which is never the case with sin.