Leviticuschapter 10
20 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Leviticus Overview.
This chapter follows directly from the day the fire fell on the altar, and it holds the hardest story in Leviticus. It concerns Aaron's family on the day their service began, with the whole camp watching. The chapter holds a death, a statute and an argument, and it moves from grief to the work that had to go on. Listen for the words Moses speaks to Aaron and for Aaron's silence, for the rule about wine and the reason given for it, and for the question over the goat that Aaron settles at the end. It teaches that coming near a holy God is a serious thing.
Context
- Who
- A camp that had watched fire fall on the altar the same morning and had shouted and fallen facedown, and two young priests who had been consecrated the week before
- What
- The account of the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, the rules given to the surviving priests, and a dispute over the sin offering.
- Where
- The entrance to the Tent of Meeting at Sinai, and the ground outside the camp where the bodies were carried.
- When
- About 1445 BC on the traditional dating, the eighth day after the seven days of ordination, in the first month of the second year after the Exodus.
- Why
- To show that the LORD must be treated as holy by those who come near Him, and that the priests' work continued under that rule.
Historical context
The instruction belongs to Moses, and the two men who die are Aaron's eldest sons, consecrated seven days earlier along with their father and their two brothers. Exodus 24:9 had already placed Nadab and Abihu on the mountain with Moses, Aaron and the seventy elders, so these were not junior men.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The day is the eighth, counted from the start of the ordination in Leviticus 8, and the traditional dating puts it in the first month of the second year after the Exodus. Israel is still camped at Sinai, and the tabernacle has been standing for weeks rather than years.
A censer was a shallow fire pan a priest carried by hand. Incense was burned by putting live coals in it and dropping the compound on them, and the coals were meant to come from the altar where fire from the LORD was already burning. A first hearer knew that detail without being told, which is why the text can call the fire unauthorized and say nothing more.
Mourning in this world was a public performance with a fixed vocabulary: loosened hair, torn clothes, ash, wailing at the door. Forbidding the priests those signs at verses 6 and 7 is therefore a heavy instruction, since a man who did not perform grief was understood to be refusing it.
Bodies were carried outside the camp because that is where Leviticus 4:12 already sends the remains of a sin offering, and the camp had a clearly marked inside and outside that everyone living in it could point to.
Significance
The nation had just been told that God would live in a tent in the middle of it. Chapter 9 showed what that meant when the fire fell on the offering and the people shouted. Chapter 10 showed what it meant when the same fire fell on two priests.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
For the survivors the practical message was that the work went on. Four priests had been consecrated a week earlier and two were left, and Moses spends the rest of the chapter putting the remaining two back to the portions and the eating that Leviticus 6 and 7 had already set out.
The rule about wine at verse 9 gave the priesthood a working reason for sobriety that was about judgment rather than about propriety. A man who had to decide whether a thing was holy or common, clean or unclean, and then teach the answer, could not be impaired while he did it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The rules this chapter leaves behind govern the priest at work and the mourner at home. A priest was forbidden wine in the measure that makes a man drunk, which the tradition fixes at a log (Rashi on Leviticus 10:9:1). Rashi is quoted from the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, which the corpus marks public domain. A rite performed by a drunken priest was void (Rashi on Leviticus 10:10:1). A drunken sage was forbidden to give a ruling, and the tradition holds that he was liable to no death penalty for it, where a priest serving drunk was (Rashi on Leviticus 10:11:1). The order forbidding Aaron and his sons to let their hair grow is read as the reverse of the ordinary law. From it the tradition learns that a mourner may not cut his hair (Rashi on Leviticus 10:6:1). Moses told them to eat the grain offering although they were mourners of the day, to whom holy things are otherwise closed (Rashi on Leviticus 10:12:2). Sons took a portion of the grain offering and daughters took none, where both shared in the wave breast (Rashi on Leviticus 10:13:1).
How it is read
This site already carries the question of what Nadab and Abihu did and why, with its holders, in the book's dossier at src/components/book/dossier-content/leviticus.ts, and the question is left there rather than argued again here. What the corpus adds is the two rabbinic answers as Rashi sets them side by side. Rabbi Eliezer held that they died for giving a ruling in front of their teacher Moses. Rabbi Ishmael held that they died for entering the sanctuary after wine, and took the ban on wine that follows as the proof (Rashi on Leviticus 10:2:1). Rashi points to the parable of the king and his friend in Leviticus Rabbah 12:1 and 12:4 for the rest of that reading.
The reading of the deaths themselves is strange and worth a reader's attention. Rashi reports that the garments of the dead were untouched, so that the bodies were carried out in them. The fire is described as two threads entering the nostrils and burning them inwardly (Rashi on Leviticus 10:5:1). The words Moses speaks to Aaron are traced to the promise that the sanctuary would be made holy by the glory of God. The tradition reads the same word as through my honoured ones. Moses then tells his brother that he had expected the house to be made holy through one of them. He says that he now sees these sons were greater than either (Rashi on Leviticus 10:3:1). The order to carry out the bodies is put in a housekeeper's words. It is as a man saying to remove the corpse from before the bride, so that the joy is not disturbed (Rashi on Leviticus 10:4:2).
The silence of Aaron is read as an act that earned something. Rashi holds that Aaron was paid for it with the next address from God, which was spoken to him alone and not to Moses with him (Rashi on Leviticus 10:3:2). The silence of his surviving sons is read the same way. Eleazar and Ithamar held their peace out of respect for their father and their teacher. Rashi proves from a later chapter that Eleazar could speak before Moses when he chose to (Rashi on Leviticus 10:19:1).
The chapter closes on an admission. Three goats had been offered that day, and only one was burned rather than eaten, and the sages differ over why. Some hold that something unclean had touched it. Others hold that it was burned because the priests were in mourning, since this goat was a fixed offering rather than an occasional one (Rashi on Leviticus 10:16:1). Moses asks his question on the assumption that the goat may have been carried outside the hangings and spoiled (Rashi on Leviticus 10:17:1). He grants that burning would have been right had its blood been carried inside (Rashi on Leviticus 10:18:1). When he is answered, Rashi holds that Moses owned the mistake without shame. He said that he had heard the ruling and forgotten it, rather than that he had never heard it (Rashi on Leviticus 10:20:1).
Ibn Ezra stands four times in this chapter, on the first and second verses and on the eighth (Ibn Ezra on Leviticus 10:1:1, 10:1:2, 10:2:1 and 10:8:1). The corpus keeps no text of him, because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit it. Malbim stands on the seventh, and Sefaria holds no English version of it (Malbim on Leviticus, Shmini 33:1).
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty Midrash and Talmud locators on this chapter and the text of none of them. Each is cited here rather than quoted, and what each teaches is reported as the teaching of the rabbis.
Twenty one of them are Talmudic. Avot DeRabbi Natan carries five, at 14:6 on the words of Moses, at 37:12 and 37:13 on the goat and the answer, and in Recension B at 40:5 and 40:12. The Jerusalem Talmud carries six, at Sanhedrin 7:2:1, Shabbat 1:1:19, Moed Katan 3:5:14, Makkot 3:3:1, Terumot 5:3:5 and Horayot 3:3:1. Bava Metzia stands twice on the ban of wine, at 90b:10 and 90b:11. Menachot stands twice on the waving, at 61a:5 and 62a:3. Bekhorot stands at 45b:10 and 32b:11, and Chullin at 26b:18 and 68b:12. Gittin 60b:1 and Berakhot 61a:10 close the Talmudic list.
Nineteen midrashic locators run beside them. Ein Yaakov carries four in the Glick Edition, at Megillah 1:8, Moed Katan 3:18, Kiddushin 1:8 and Bava Metzia 2:3. Midrash Lekach Tov carries four, at Leviticus 10:5:1, 10:13:1 and 10:19:1, and at Genesis 9:23:3 on the carrying of the bodies. Bamidbar Rabbah carries three, at 2:24, 5:4 and 2:23. Bereshit Rabbah carries three, at 3:9, 20:3 and 100:7. Sifra stands twice, at Kedoshim, Chapter 10 9 and at Shemini, Chapter 1 10. Bereshit Rabbati stands twice, at Parashat Noah 22 and Parashat Vayetze 31. Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 10:4:1 closes the list.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Leviticus 10:2:1 to 10:20:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Leviticus 10:1:1, 10:1:2, 10:2:1 and 10:8:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text; Malbim, Malbim on Leviticus, Shmini 33:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; MannaFest, the book dossier, src/components/book/dossier-content/leviticus.ts, which carries the question of Nadab and Abihu with its holders; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/leviticus/10.json, the 40 Midrash and Talmud locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Strange fire, sudden death
Leviticus 10:1-2
Nadab and Abihu are Aaron's two eldest sons, who went up Sinai with Moses at Exodus 24:9. One verse earlier fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the offering, and here it consumes the two men in nearly the same words. The phrase unauthorized fire returns only at Numbers 3:4 and 26:61, and the verse gives one reason, contrary to His command.
Leviticus 10:1
“Nadab and Abihu - The two elder sons of Aaron Exo 6:23; Num 3:2, who were among those invited to accompany Moses when he was going up Mount Sinai, but who were “to worship afar off,” and not “come near the Lord.” Exo 24:1-2. Censer - See Exo 25:38 note. Strange fire - The point of their offence is evidently expressed in this term. This may very probably mean that the incense was lighted at an unauthorized time.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Leviticus 10:1
“The sons of Aaron also, who set upon the altar a strange fire not commanded by the Lord, were at once blotted out in the sight of the avenging Lord. These examples, you will see, are being followed wherever the tradition which comes from God is despised by lovers of strange doctrine and replaced by teaching of merely human authority.”
Cyprian · written before 258 · Treatise I. On the Unity of the Church 18-19patristic
Leviticus 10:1
“Now as this was forbidden implicitly; chap. vi, 12, especially when God himself made a comment upon that text, and by sending fire from heaven declared of what fire he there spake; so it is more than probable it was forbidden expressly, though that be not here mentioned, nor was it necessary it should be.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The two men die where they had offered. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the fire as coming from the most holy place, and they compare the judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11, where the first contempt for sacred things is also punished at once. John Wesley reads consumed as the taking of life, as a sword is said to devour at 2 Samuel 2:26.
Leviticus 10:2
“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 (Ac 5:1-11).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 10:2
“From the Lord - From heaven, or rather from the sanctuary. Devoured them - Destroyed their lives; for their bodies and garments were not consumed. Thus the sword is said to devour, 2 Sam. ii, 26.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 10:2
“The fire which had just before sanctified the ministry of Aaron as well pleasing to God, now brought to destruction his two eldest sons because they did not sanctify Yahweh in their hearts, but dared to perform a self-willed act of worship; just as the same Gospel is to one a savor of life unto life, and to another a savor of death unto death 2Co 2:16.”
Moses answers with a word of the LORD: To those who come near Me I will show My holiness, and in the sight of all the people I will reveal My glory. But Aaron remained silent until verse 19. Keil and Delitzsch read the fire as common fire and not coals from the altar, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report the drink reading many draw from verse 9.
Leviticus 10:3
“Rather, I will sanctify myself in them that come near to me (i. e. the priests), and I will glorify myself before all the people. The words used by Moses on this occasion are not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. But the sense is implied in such passages as Exo 19:22; Exo 28:41; Exo 29:1, Exo 29:44. Aaron’s silence (compare Psa 39:9) on this occasion may be compared with his reasonable and natural expostulation with Moses when his surviving sons were rebuked for not having eaten the flesh of the sin-offering Lev 10:19.”
Leviticus 10:4-5
Moses calls two cousins of Aaron, Levites and not priests, because Aaron and his surviving sons may not leave the entrance of the tent. They carry the bodies still in their tunics, so the fire took the men and left their clothing. The bodies go outside the camp, where Leviticus 4:12 sends the remains of a sin offering.
Leviticus 10:4
“The first cousins of Aaron Exo 6:22 are selected by Moses to convey the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out of the camp and bury them, probably because they were the nearest relations who were not priests. See Num 9:6.”
The cousins obey at once and carry the dead men out in the tunics of their consecration, the garments Exodus 28:40 prescribed for Aaron's sons. Albert Barnes likens the death to a flash of lightning. He also takes the removal to be for burial, and the verse closes with the words as Moses had directed.
Leviticus 10:5
“Coats - See Exo 28:39. Life had been extinguished as if by a flash of lightning, but neither the bodies nor the dresses were destroyed.”
Leviticus 10:6-7
Aaron and his two remaining sons are forbidden the signs of grief, and the whole house of Israel mourns in their place. They may not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting because the seven days of ordination at Leviticus 8:33 are not finished, and because the LORD’s anointing oil is on you. The warning or you will die stands at verses 6, 7 and 9.
Leviticus 10:6
“Uncover not your heads--They who were ordered to carry out the two bodies, being engaged in their sacred duties, were forbidden to remove their turbans, in conformity with the usual customs of mourning; and the prohibition "neither rend your garments," was, in all probability, confined also to their official costume.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 10:6
“Uncover not your heads, etc. - They were to use no sign of grief or mourning, 1. Because those who were employed in the service of the sanctuary should avoid every thing that might incapacitate them for that service; and, 2. Because the crime of their brethren was so highly provoking to God, and so fully merited the punishment which he had inflicted, that their mourning might be considered as accusing the Divine justice of undue severity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The anointing oil marks Aaron and his sons as set apart to the LORD's service, and John Wesley draws from it that they should put that service before any funeral rite. The verse ends with their obedience: they did as Moses instructed. Leviticus 21:10-12 later makes the same rule permanent for the high priest.
Leviticus 10:7
“Ye shall not go from the tabernacle - Where at this time they were, because this happened within seven days of their consecration. The oil of the Lord is upon you - You are persons consecrated peculiarly to God's service, which therefore it is just you should prefer before all funeral solemnities.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
No wine when you enter the tent
Leviticus 10:8-9
This is the one place in Leviticus where the LORD speaks to Aaron alone. The rule bans wine and strong drink when the priests enter the Tent of Meeting, a permanent statute for the generations to come. Its place right after the deaths is why, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report, many have read drink into verse 1, and the chapter never joins the two.
The ban is tied to the time of service, when the priests enter the tent. Matthew Henry notes that priests could drink at other times, and he connects the rule to Ezekiel 44:21 and to the qualifications for ministers in 1 Timothy 3. Jerome takes strong drink to cover every intoxicating liquor, whatever it is made from.
Leviticus 10:9
“Do not drink wine nor strong drink--This prohibition, and the accompanying admonitions, following immediately the occurrence of so fatal a catastrophe [Le 10:1, 2], has given rise to an opinion entertained by many, that the two disobedient priests were under the influence of intoxication when they committed the offense which was expiated only by their lives.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 10:9
“Priests given to wine are both condemned by the apostle and forbidden by the old law. Those who serve the altar, we are told, must drink neither wine nor shechar. Now every intoxicating drink is in Hebrew called shechar, whether it is made of corn or of the juice of apples, whether you distil from the honeycomb a rude kind of mead or make a liquor by squeezing dates or strain a thick syrup from a decoction of corn. Whatever intoxicates and disturbs the balance of the mind avoid as you would wine.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 52.11patristic
Leviticus 10:9
“At other times they were allowed it (it was not expected that every priest should be a Nazarite), but during the time of their ministration they were forbidden it. This was one of the laws in Ezekiel's temple ( Ezek. xliv. 21 ), and so it is required of gospel ministers that they be not given to wine, 1 Tim. iii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 10:10-11
The reason for a clear head is two jobs. The priest must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean, and chapters 11 to 15 work that out at length. He is also to teach the Israelites all the statutes, and Malachi 2:7 holds later priests to this verse: the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge.
Leviticus 10:10
“That we may put difference between holy and unholy - This is a strong reason why they should drink no inebriating liquor, that their understanding being clear, and their judgment correct, they might be always able to discern between the clean and the unclean, and ever pronounce righteous judgment. Injunctions similar to this were found among the Egyptians, Carthaginians, and Greeks. Indeed, common sense itself shows that neither a drunkard nor a sot should ever be suffered to minister in holy things.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The statutes to be taught came through Moses, and the priests are made their teachers in every generation. Adam Clarke links the teaching to the clear mind the previous verses require, since a priest had to discern clean from unclean and pronounce a righteous judgment. Deuteronomy 33:10 later names teaching the ordinances to Jacob among the duties of Levi.
Leviticus 10:11
“16 And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying, 17 Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the L ORD ?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Eat your portion in a holy place
Leviticus 10:12-13
On the day of the deaths Moses goes back over the priests' portions that Leviticus 6 and 7 had laid down. Four priests were ordained a week ago and two are left, so the work does not stop and the survivors carry it. Eating the offering is put to them as an order, since verse 13 ends for this is what I have been commanded.
Leviticus 10:12
“The argument is, that as such meals were appointed in honor of Yahweh Himself, they ought to be conducted with due reverence and discretion. Lev 10:12 Beside the altar - What is called “the holy place” in Lev 10:13, Lev 10:17: it should be rather, a holy place, any part of the holy precinct, as distinguished from a merely “clean place” Lev 10:14, either within or without the court of the tabernacle. Lev 10:14 Wave breast and heave shoulder - See Lev 7:30 note.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 10:12
“The meat-offerings, being annexed to the burnt-offerings, were intended only and wholly for the glory of God; but the peace-offerings were ordained for the furtherance of men's joy and comfort; the former therefore were the more sacred, and to be had more in veneration.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The grain offering is the share of Aaron and his sons, eaten in a holy place, as Leviticus 6:16-18 had set out. Albert Barnes reads the phrase as any part of the holy precinct, set against the clean place of verse 14. Matthew Henry sets beside it the rule for sin offerings, whose flesh the priest also eats in the holy place unless its blood was carried inside.
Leviticus 10:13
“Now the law of the sin-offerings was that if the blood of them was brought into the holy place, as that of the sin-offerings for the priest was, then the flesh was to be burnt without the camp; otherwise it was to be eaten by the priest in the holy place, ch. vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 10:14-15
The chapter grades holiness by who may eat and where. The grain offering, most holy, is eaten beside the altar. The breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution go to the priest's sons and daughters in a ceremonially clean place, and Leviticus 22:12 limits which daughters keep the right.
Leviticus 10:14
“In a clean place - In any of your dwellings, or any place in the camp, which was kept clean from all ceremonial defilement. In any place where the women as well as the men might come, for the daughters of the priest might eat these as well as their sons, if they were maids, or widows, or divorced, chap. xxii, 11-13.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The thigh and the breast come to the altar with the fat, are waved before the LORD, and then return to the priests as their lasting portion. Albert Barnes refers the reader to his note on Leviticus 7:30 for the wave breast and the heave thigh. Leviticus 7:34 had already given these two portions to Aaron and his sons from the peace offerings of Israel.
The burned goat and Aaron's answer
Leviticus 10:16-18
The goat is the people's sin offering of Leviticus 9:15, burned when Leviticus 6:26 required the priests to eat it, since its blood had not been brought inside. Moses brings the charge against Eleazar and Ithamar and not their father. Verse 17 gives his reason, it was given to you to take away the guilt of the congregation, which puts the priests' eating inside the atonement.
Leviticus 10:16
“Moses diligently sought the goat - The goat which was offered the same day for the sins of the priests and the people, (see Lev 9:15, Lev 9:16), and which, through the confusion that happened on account of the death of Nadab and Abihu, was burnt instead of being eaten. See Lev 10:16-18.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 10:16
“He was angry with Eleazar - He spares Aaron at this time, as overwhelmed with sorrow, and because the rebuking him before his sons might have exposed him to some contempt; but he knew that the reproof though directed to them, would concern him too.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Moses gives two grounds for his question: the offering is most holy, and it was given to the priests to take away the guilt of the congregation. John Wesley reads the gift as a reward for their service in making atonement, through which God is reconciled to those who repent and believe. Leviticus 6:25-26 is the rule Moses has in mind.
Leviticus 10:17
“God hath given it to you - As a reward of your service, whereby you expiate, bear, and take away their sins, by offering those sacrifices, by which God through Christ is reconciled to the penitent and believing offerers.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Moses states the test that decides the case. By Leviticus 6:30 a sin offering whose blood is taken into the tent is burned, and one whose blood stays outside is eaten, as John Gill sets out. Albert Barnes notes that the Hebrew calls the inner room simply the holy, and uses the full phrase holy place for the precinct where the flesh was eaten.
Leviticus 10:18
“Behold, the blood of it was not brought in within the holy place,.... When that was the case, indeed, the flesh of the sin offering was not to be eaten, but burnt, see Lev 6:30 but this was not the case now, and therefore its flesh should have been eaten, and not burnt: ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded, Lev 6:26.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 10:18
“The holy place,” as it is called in our version, within the tabernacle (see Exo 26:33; Exo 28:29, etc.) into which the blood was carried, is regularly called in Hebrew, simply, “the holy” (as the innermost chamber is called “the holy of holies”), the adjective being used substantively; while the precinct in which the flesh of the sin-offering was eaten is generally called in full the holy place, the substantive being expressed Lev 10:13.
Leviticus 10:19-20
This is the only reply of Aaron recorded in Leviticus, and it answers on fitness and not procedure. He asks whether eating the offering that day would have been acceptable in the sight of the LORD, and when Moses heard this explanation, he was satisfied. Adam Clarke observes that God gave no sign of displeasure, and Matthew Henry reads the exchange by Hosea 6:6, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
Leviticus 10:19
That is: “Behold this very day, in which we have done our part in sacrificing sin-offerings and burnt-offerings to the Lord, this great calamity has befallen me. Could it have been well-pleasing to the Lord if those who have been so humbled as I and my sons have been by the sin of our relations and the divine judgment, had feasted on the most holy flesh of the sin-offering?”
Moses accepts Aaron's reply, and the chapter closes on that acceptance. Adam Clarke judges that Aaron's argument had good sense and strong reason, and that Moses felt its force and pressed the matter no further. The chapter that began with two priests dying for an unauthorized act ends with an irregular act allowed to stand.
Leviticus 10:20
“When Moses heard that, he was content - The argument used by Aaron had in it both good sense and strong reason, and Moses, as a reasonable man, felt its force; and as God evidenced no kind of displeasure at this irregularity, which was, in a measure at least, justified by the present necessity, he thought proper to urge the matter no farther.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, one of the two stories set inside a book of instruction, closing the section in which the priesthood is ordained and tested, as Wenham classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Fire out of the LORD, twice in three verses | At Leviticus 9:24 fire comes out from the presence of the LORD and consumes the offering on the altar, and the people shout and fall facedown. At 10:2 fire comes out from the presence of the LORD and consumes Nadab and Abihu. The same clause carries the acceptance of a sacrifice and the death of two priests, and the chapter puts one immediately after the other.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1864 to 1870, on Leviticus 10:1 to 2. | Leviticus 9:24, Leviticus 10:2 |
| Or else you will die | The warning stands three times in four verses. Aaron and his sons must not show the signs of grief or they will die at verse 6, must not leave the entrance to the Tent of Meeting or they will die at verse 7, and must not drink wine or strong drink when they enter it or they will die at verse 9. Each is attached to something ordinary that any other Israelite could do. | Leviticus 10:6, Leviticus 10:7, Leviticus 10:9 |
| The four words the priest is given to work with | Verse 10 sets out two pairs, the holy against the common and the clean against the unclean, and verse 11 makes teaching them part of the same office. Chapters 11 to 15 are that distinction worked out at length, so the sentence is the book's own hinge into the purity laws.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1831, on Leviticus 10:10. | Leviticus 10:10, Leviticus 10:11 |
| The one speech addressed to Aaron | Leviticus opens its speeches with the LORD speaking to Moses, or to Moses and Aaron together. Verse 8 is the single place in the book where the LORD speaks to Aaron and to nobody else, and what he receives is the rule about wine, given on the day he buried two sons.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Leviticus 10:8. | Leviticus 10:8, Leviticus 10:9 |
The chapter is the hinge between the ordination and the purity laws. Everything before it is about how the priesthood was installed, and the statute at verse 10 sets the terms of everything from chapter 11 to chapter 15. The site's Leviticus dossier dates the scene to the eighth day of the first month of the second year after the Exodus, the day the priesthood began its service.
12 more paragraphs on the patterns
The bodies go outside the camp, which is where Leviticus 4:12 already sends the remains of a sin offering, so the disposal follows a rule the book has given rather than an improvisation. The priestly tunics come through the fire whole and the men do not, and the chapter records the detail at verse 5 without drawing a conclusion from it.
The historical value
The scene assumes a working sanctuary with a courtyard, an altar of incense, censers carried by individual priests, and a camp with an inside and an outside. It also assumes that the priesthood was a family, since the two men called in to carry the bodies are named as sons of Aaron's uncle Uzziel. Nadab and Abihu are named twice more in Scripture, at Numbers 3:4 and Numbers 26:61, and in both places the same charge is recorded against them, which makes this the only offence the Torah ever attaches to their names.
The New Testament's use
No verse of this chapter is quoted in the New Testament with a citation formula. Its statute at verses 10 and 11 is taken up in the Old Testament at Malachi 2:7, where the prophet holds the priests of his own day to this verse by saying that the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge. The instruction about wine at verse 9 stands behind the requirement at 1 Timothy 3:3 and Titus 1:7 that an overseer be no drunkard, though neither passage quotes it.
The debated point
What made the fire unauthorized is the chapter's standing question, and the text gives one reason only, that the LORD had not commanded it. This site's Leviticus dossier carries three positions with their holders. The first is the plain reading of verse 1, that the offence is incense or fire offered apart from the commanded procedure, and the dossier records it as the reading of the wide majority of Jewish and Christian commentators, ancient and modern. The second is drunkenness, read out of the rule given immediately afterward at verse 9, which the dossier traces in Leviticus Rabbah and in Christian commentators including Matthew Henry, and which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report as a reading many have entertained. The third is a minority position that the two men entered the Most Holy Place itself uninvited, which connects the scene to the restriction given later at 16:1 and 16:2.
Keil and Delitzsch take a narrower line inside the first position, reading the strange fire as common fire rather than coals taken from the altar. The strongest objection to the drunkenness reading is that the chapter never joins the two, and places the rule about wine eight verses after the deaths without a word connecting them. The strongest objection to the plain reading is that it leaves the specific fault unstated, which is what has kept the other two alive.
The second debated point
Why Aaron was not charged along with his sons at verses 16 to 20 is argued. Moses brings the charge against Eleazar and Ithamar, and Aaron answers for them. Aaron does not dispute the rule, and asks instead whether the offering eaten by a man in his position that day would have been acceptable, which answers on fitness rather than on procedure. Adam Clarke observes that God gave no sign of displeasure at the irregularity. Matthew Henry reads the exchange by the rule that God will have mercy and not sacrifice.
Where to go deeper
The office the two men held is set out at the priest. The blood that the sin offering of verses 16 to 18 turns on is set out at the blood. The restriction on entering the Most Holy Place that verse 1 of chapter 16 dates from this scene is the subject of the owed page on the Day of Atonement.
Keep studying
Words12
Subjects1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1831, on Leviticus 10:16; Gordon Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 1979, the partition this site's Leviticus dossier carries as proposed under his name, which runs the ordination section from 8:1 to 10:20 and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Leviticus 10:8.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on Leviticus; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Letter 52; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.