Saturday, September 19, 2020

Leviticus 10:1-7 comments: Nadab and Abihu's death

 

Leviticus 10:1 ¶  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. 2  And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

 

God’s strict command was already given.

 

Exodus 30:9  Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon.

 

Strange and stranger are words that in this Bible, in the context, mean foreign, likely referring to the heathen religious world out of which the Hebrews had been called.

Genesis 15:13  And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

 

Genesis 35:2  Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:

 

Exodus 2:22  And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

 

Exodus 12:19  Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.

 

Strange fire would be something that was offering to pagan gods, not something that God required. Remember, as part of our Creator’s ministry of reconciling mankind to Himself He is creating a people for Himself from whom His physical body, Jesus Christ, would arise linking Him with mankind as fully man and fully God. The Hebrews were not to mix pagan elements into their worship or into what God required. This kind of pollution would plague Israel for generations.

For example, in ancient Near Eastern religion the sex act was important to the worship of heathen gods. Temples were attended by heterosexual and homosexual prostitutes. Throughout the Bible this was condemned and amazingly this behavior was brought into God’s temple, making it a house of prostitution like the pagan world around them.

Deuteronomy 23:17  There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.18  Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God. [dog in this context is slang for a homosexual temple prostitute or sodomite]

 

To show you who serious God was about not wanting these heathen practices in His worship He sent a fire out and killed the offending sons of Aaron.

Leviticus 10:3 ¶  Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, 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 unto them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp. 5  So they went near, and carried them in their coats out of the camp; as Moses had said. 6  And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled. 7  And ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you. And they did according to the word of Moses.

 

Aaron was wise to maintain his composure. He had experience in offending God in a similar manner with the golden calf in Exodus 32. I cannot stress upon you enough the importance of separating the Hebrew nation from the idolatrous nations around them, saving a small piece of mankind from the mass of human beings who had drifted into abominations against their Creator.

Moses warns Aaron and his remaining sons not to mourn or show grief, lest they die. They were not to leave the tabernacle, lest they die.

God wanted the entire house of Israel to bewail the death of their priests for their sin. It was to be a public grief not a private family grief. Jesus made an interesting statement in the so-called Sermon on the Mount given seated on a hillside to teach a few of His disciples as the entire compliment of the 12 Apostles had not yet been chosen.

Matthew 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

 

Some commentators say this is a reference to mourning for sin in contrast to the sentiments Christ expressed in the sermon given standing on a plain to the multitudes in Luke 6 with all of the Apostles chosen and present, a statement which is about grief for suffering. Luke 6 does not contain a different version than the sermon in Matthew 5. It is a different sermon, with a different emphasis given under different circumstances.

It is a good interpretation, I think, that God wanted the congregation to lament and grieve over the sin the priests committed against God that resulted in their death as much as they grieved over the priests’ death. How often have we mourned over the consequences of sin like death from a drug overdose and not grieved over the sin that was committed that resulted in the death?

Sin is the cause of death. It is the legacy of Adam and Eve’s transgression. Lest you repeat what others have told you that death is simply the natural ending of life let me point out that even evolutionists don’t necessarily believe that. As former professor of Immunology at UCLA William R. Clark wrote in his 1998 book Sex and the Origins of Death;

 

Humans on rare occasions may survive to 120 years, some turtles to 200. But all animals eventually die. Many single-cell organisms may die, as the result of accident or starvation; in fact the vast majority do. But there is nothing programmed into them that says they must die. Death did not appear simultaneously with life. This is one of the most important and profound statements in all of biology. At the very least it deserves repetition: Death is not inextricably intertwined with the definition of life.[1]

Militant atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins wrote of the reality of death all around us in his unbelief.

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored….In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.[2]

This condition of humanity and all life which means, in essence, that if you are not drugged by your doctor you will most likely die whimpering in pain, should give us pause. When was the last time your mourned for mankind’s sin against God? When was our condition a sorrow to your heart?

2Corinthians 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

 

Godly sorrow would seem to be more profound than simply being sorry things didn’t work out like you planned. It is sorrow for sin against a holy God and sorrow for the end result. Here, the people of Israel will bewail the burning. But, are they just mourning for what was done by God or also for why it was done?



[1] William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death (London: Oxford University Press, 1998), 54.

[2] Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 154-155.

 

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