Levitikus 10:2 Kommentar

The story of this chapter is as sad an interruption to the institutions of the levitical law as that of the golden calf was to the account of the erecting of the tabernacle. Here is, I. The sin and death of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron (Lev 10:1, Lev 10:2). II. The quieting of Aaron under this sore affliction (Lev 10:3). III. Orders given and observed about the funeral and mourning (Lev 10:4-7). IV. A command to the priests not to drink wine when they went in to minister (Lev 10:8-11). V. The care Moses took that they should go on with their work, notwithstanding the agitation produced by this event (Lev 10:12, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 10 This chapter begins with the sin and punishment of two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Lev 10:1 for whose death Aaron and his sons are commanded not to mourn, nor to depart from the tabernacle, Lev 10:6 and an order is given, prohibiting the priests from drinking wine when they went into it, Lev 10:8 the law of eating holy things, both those that were more, and those that were less holy, is enjoined, Lev 10:12 and the flesh of the sin offering not being eaten, but burnt, Aaron's sons are blamed for it, for which he makes an apology to the satisfaction of Moses, Lev 10:16.

And there went out fire from the Lord,.... They sinned by fire, and they were punished by fire, either from heaven, or from the most holy place, where the Lord dwelt between the cherubim; this was of the nature of lightning, as appears by what follows: and devoured them; not reduced them to ashes, for neither their bodies nor their clothes were burnt with this fire, as is clear from Lev 10:4 but their lives were destroyed, they were lifeless, their souls were separated from their bodies by it, and they died; which is often the case by the lightning, that the clothes of those who are killed with it are untouched, and scarce any marks of violence on their bodies; and so the Targum of Jonathan says of these, their bodies were not burnt: and they died before the Lord; upon the spot where they were offering incense, in the holy place, over against the most holy place. This was very awful, like the case of Ananias and Sapphira, and may seem severe: it was for the terror of others in the priesthood, or who should come after, to take care that they performed their office according to the divine precepts, and brought in no innovation into their service. And when it is considered that these were the sons of the high priest, newly invested with an high and honourable office, and just had the laws of the priesthood delivered unto them, and yet deviated from them as soon as in their office, and very probably, from what follows, went drunk into their service, their sin will appear aggravated, and the punishment less severe. This shows there is nothing in carnal descent, these were the sons of Aaron the high priest, that acted this part, and came to this end; the proneness of men to transgress the laws of God as soon as given them; thus the people of Israel fell into idolatry as soon as the moral law was given; and here the priests, as soon as the ceremonial laws, relating to the priesthood, were delivered to them; and also that the law made sinful men priests, and that the Levitical priesthood was imperfect; and that no order of men are free from sin, or exempt from punishment: and the whole of the divine conduct in this affair may lead us to observe how jealous God is in matters of worship; how much he dislikes hypocrites, and formal professors; how severe he will be against such who bring in strange doctrines; what will be the fate of the contemners of Gospel doctrines and ordinances; and how much he resents those who trust in themselves, and their works, and bring in anything of their own in the business of salvation, which is strange fire, sparks of their own kindling, a burning incense to their own drag, and sacrificing to their own net.

Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire before the Lord, and are destroyed, Lev 10:1-5. Aaron and his family forbidden to mourn for them, Lev 10:6, Lev 10:7. He and his family are forbidden the use of wine, Lev 10:8-11. Directions to Aaron and his sons concerning the eating of the meat-offerings, etc., Lev 10:12-15. Moses chides Aaron for not having eaten the sin-offering, Lev 10:16-18. Aaron excuses himself, and Moses is satisfied, Lev 10:19, Lev 10:20.

NADAB AND ABIHU BURNT. (Lev. 10:1-20) the sons of Aaron, &c.--If this incident occurred at the solemn period of the consecrating and dedicating the altar, these young men assumed an office which had been committed to Moses; or if it were some time after, it was an encroachment on duties which devolved on their father alone as the high priest. But the offense was of a far more aggravated nature than such a mere informality would imply. It consisted not only in their venturing unauthorized to perform the incense service--the highest and most solemn of the priestly offices--not only in their engaging together in a work which was the duty only of one, but in their presuming to intrude into the holy of holies, to which access was denied to all but the high priest alone. In this respect, "they offered strange fire before the Lord"; they were guilty of a presumptuous and unwarranted intrusion into a sacred office which did not belong to them. But their offense was more aggravated still; for instead of taking the fire which was put into their censers from the brazen altar, they seem to have been content with common fire and thus perpetrated an act which, considering the descent of the miraculous fire they had so recently witnessed and the solemn obligation under which they were laid to make use of that which was specially appropriated to the service of the altars, they betrayed a carelessness, an irreverence, a want of faith, most surprising and lamentable. A precedent of such evil tendency was dangerous, and it was imperatively necessary, therefore, as well for the priests themselves as for the sacred things, that a marked expression of the divine displeasure should be given for doing that which "God commanded them not."

there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them--rather, "killed them"; for it appears (Lev 10:5) that neither their bodies nor their robes were consumed. The expression, "from the Lord," indicates that this fire issued from the most holy place. In the destruction of these two young priests by the infliction of an awful judgment, the wisdom of God observed the same course, in repressing the first instance of contempt for sacred things, as he did at the commencement of the Christian dispensation (Act 5:1-11).

Nadab and Abihu took their censers (machtah, Exo 25:38), and having put fire in them, placed incense thereon, and brought strange fire before Jehovah, which He had not commanded them. It is not very clear what the offence of which they were guilty actually was. The majority of expositors suppose the sin to have consisted in the fact, that they did not take the fire for the incense from the altar-fire. But this had not yet been commanded by God; and in fact it is never commanded at all, except with regard to the incense-offering, with which the high priest entered the most holy place on the day of atonement (Lev 16:12), though we may certainly infer from this, that it was also the rule for the daily incense-offering. By the fire which they offered before Jehovah, we are no doubt to understand the firing of the incense-offering. This might be called "strange fire" if it was not offered in the manner prescribed in the law, just as in Exo 30:9 incense not prepared according to the direction of God is called "strange incense." The supposition that they presented an incense-offering that was not commanded in the law, and apart from the time of the morning and evening sacrifice, and that this constituted their sin, is supported by the time at which their illegal act took place. It is perfectly obvious from Lev 10:12. and 16ff. that it occurred in the interval between the sacrificial transaction in ch. 9 and the sacrificial meal which followed it, and therefore upon the day of their inauguration. For in Lev 10:12 Moses commands Aaron and his remaining sons Eleazar and Ithamar to eat the meat-offering that was left from the firings of Jehovah, and inquires in Lev 10:16 for the goat of the sin-offering, which the priests were to have eaten in a holy place. Knobel's opinion is not an improbable one, therefore, that Nadab and Abihu intended to accompany the shouts of the people with an incense-offering to the praise and glory of God, and presented an incense-offering not only at an improper time, but not prepared from the altar-fire, and committed such a sin by this will-worship, that they were smitten by the fire which came forth from Jehovah, even before their entrance into the holy place, and so died "before Jehovah." The expression "before Jehovah" is applied to the presence of God, both in the dwelling (viz., the holy place and the holy of holies, e.g., Lev 4:6-7; Lev 16:13) and also in the court (e.g., Lev 1:5, etc.). It is in the latter sense that it is to be taken here, as is evident from Lev 10:4, where the persons slain are said to have lain "before the sanctuary of the dwelling," i.e., in the court of the tabernacle. The fire of the holy God (Exo 19:18), which had just sanctified the service of Aaron as well-pleasing to God, brought destruction upon his two eldest sons, because they had not sanctified Jehovah in their hearts, but had taken upon themselves a self-willed service; just as the same gospel is to one a savour of life unto life, and to another a savour of death unto death (Co2 2:16). - In Lev 10:3 Moses explains this judgment to Aaron: "This is it that Jehovah spake, saying, I will sanctify Myself in him that is nigh to Me, and will glorify Myself in the face of all the people." אכּבד is unquestionably to be taken in the same sense as in Exo 14:4, Exo 14:17; consequently אקּדשׁ is to be taken in a reflective and not in a passive sense, in the Eze 38:16. The imperfects are used as aorists, in the sense of what God does at all times. But these words of Moses are no "reproof to Aaron, who had not restrained the untimely zeal of his sons" (Knobel), nor a reproach which made Aaron responsible for the conduct of his sons, but a simple explanation of the judgment of God, which should be taken to heart by every one, and involved an admonition to all who heard it, not to Aaron only but to the whole nation, to sanctify God continually in the proper way. Moreover Jehovah had not communicated to Moses by revelation the words which he spoke here, but had made the fact known by the position assigned to Aaron and his sons through their election to the priesthood. By this act Jehovah had brought them near to Himself (Num 16:5), made them קרבי = ליהוה קרבים "persons standing near to Jehovah" (Eze 42:13; Eze 43:19), and sanctified them to Himself by anointing (Lev 8:10, Lev 8:12; Exo 29:1, Exo 29:44; Exo 40:13, Exo 40:15), that they might sanctify Him in their office and life. If they neglected this sanctification, He sanctified Himself in them by a penal judgment (Eze 38:16), and thereby glorified Himself as the Holy One, who is not to be mocked. "And Aaron held his peace." He was obliged to acknowledge the righteousness of the holy God.