'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. 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. 8. And the Lord
spake unto Aaron, saying, 9. Do not drink wine nor strong
drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the
tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be
a statute for ever throughout your generations; 10. And
that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and
between unclean and clean; 11. And that ye may teach the
children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath
spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'--LEV. x. 1-11.
This solemn story of sin and punishment is connected with the preceding
chapter by a simple 'and.' Probably, therefore, Nadab and Abihu
'offered strange fire,' immediately after the fire from Jehovah had
consumed the appointed sacrifice. Their sin was aggravated by the time
of its being committed. But a week had passed since the consecration of
their father and themselves as priests. The first sacrifices had just
been offered, and here, in the very blossoming time, came a vile
canker. If such licence in setting aside the prescriptions of the newly
established sacrificial order asserted itself then, to what lengths
might it not run when the first impression of sanctity and of God's
commandment had been worn by time and custom? The sin was further
aggravated by the sinners being priests, who were doubly obliged to
punctilious adherence to the instituted ritual. If they set the example
of contempt, would not the people better (or, rather, worsen) their
instruction?
Unquestionably, their punishment was awfully severe. But we shall
entirely misconceive their sin if we judge it by our standards. We are
not dependent on forms as Israel was, but the spiritual religion of
Christianity was only made possible by the externalism of the older
system. The sweet kernel would not have softened and become juicy
without the shelter of the hard shell. Scaffolding is needed to erect a
building; and he is not a wise man who either despises or would keep
permanently standing the scaffold poles.
We draw a broad distinction between positive commandments and moral or
religious obligations. But in the Mosaic legislation that distinction
does not exist. There, all precepts are God's uttered will, and all
disobedience is rebellion against Him. Nor could it be otherwise at the
stage of development which Israel had reached.
What, then, was the crime of these two rash sons of Aaron? That
involves two questions: What did they do? and What was the sin of doing
it? The former question may be answered in various ways. Certainly the
designation of 'strange fire' seems best explained by the usual
supposition that it means fire not taken from the altar. The other
explanations, which make the sin to have been offering at an
unauthorised time, or offering incense not compounded according to the
prescription, give an unnatural meaning to the phrase. It was the
'fire' which was wrong,--that is, it was 'fire which they had kindled,'
caught up from some common culinary hearth, or created by themselves in
some way.
What was their sin in thus offering it? Plainly, the narrative points
to the essence of the crime in calling it 'fire which He had not
commanded.' So this was their crime, that they were tampering with the
appointed order which but a week before they had been consecrated to
conserve and administer; that they were thus thrusting in self-will and
personal caprice, as of equal authority with the divine commandment;
that they were arrogating the right to cut and carve God's
appointments, as the whim or excitement of the moment dictated; and
that they were doing their best to obliterate the distinction on the
preservation of which religion, morality, and the national existence
depended; namely, the distinction between holy and common, clean and
unclean. To plough that distinction deep into the national
consciousness was no small part of the purpose of the law; and here
were two of its appointed witnesses disregarding it, and flying in its
face. The flash of holy fire consuming the sacrifices had scarcely
faded off their eyeballs when they thus sinned.
They have had many successors, not only in Israel, while a ritual
demanding punctilious conformity lasted, but in Christendom since.
Alas! our censers are often flaming with 'strange fire.' How much
so-called Christian worship glows with self-will or with partisan zeal!
When we seek to worship God for what we can get, when we rush into His
presence with hot, eager desires which we have not subordinated to His
will, we are burning 'strange fire which He has not commanded.' The
only fire which should kindle the incense in our censers, and send it
up to heaven in fragrant wreaths, is fire caught from the altar of
sacrifice. God must kindle the flame in our hearts if we are to render
these else cold hearts to Him.
'The prayers I bring will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the Spirit give, by which I pray.'
The swift, terrible punishment does indeed bear marks of the severity
of that earlier stage of revelation. But it was not disproportioned to
the offence, and it was not the cruelty of a martinet who avenged
ceremonial lapses with penalties which should have been kept for moral
offences. The surface of the sin was ceremonial impropriety: the heart
of it was flouting Jehovah and His law. It was better that two men
should die, and the whole nation perish not, as it would have done if
their example had been followed. It is mercy to trample out the first
sparks beside a powder-barrel.
There is a very striking parallel between verse 2 and the last verse of
the preceding chapter. In both the same expression is used, 'There came
forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed' (the word rendered
_devoured_ in verse 2 is the same in Hebrew as _consumed_). So, then,
the same divine fire, which had graciously signified God's acceptance
of the appointed sacrifice, now flashed out with lightning-like power
of destruction, and killed the two rebel priests. There is dormant
potency of destruction in the God who reveals Himself as gracious. The
'wrath of the Lamb' is as real as His gentleness. The Gospel is 'the
savour of life unto life' and 'of death unto death.'
Moses' word to the stunned father is of a piece with the severity of
the whole incident. No voice of condolence or sympathy comes from him.
The brother is swallowed up in the lawgiver. He puts into words the
meaning of the terrible stroke, and expects Aaron to acquiesce, though
his heart bleeds. What was his interpretation? He saw in it God's
purpose to be 'sanctified in them that come nigh Him.' The priests were
these. Nadab and Abihu had been consecrated for the purpose of
enforcing the truth of God's holiness. They had done the very opposite,
by breaking down the distinction between sacred and common.
But their nearness to God brought with it not only corresponding
obligations, but corresponding criminality and penalty, if these
obligations were not discharged. If God is not 'sanctified' _by_ His
servants, He will sanctify Himself _on_ them. If His people do not set
forth His infinite separation from all evil and elevation above all
creatures, He will proclaim these truths in lightning that kills and
thunder that roars. It is a universal law which Moses sternly spoke to
Aaron instead of comfort, bidding him recognise the necessity of the
fearful blow to his paternal heart. 'You only have I known of all the
families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities.'
The prohibition to Aaron and his sons to show signs of mourning is as
stern as the rest of the story, and serves to insist upon the true
point of view from which to regard it. For the official representatives
of the divine order of worship to mourn the deaths of its assailants
would have seemed to indicate their murmuring at God's judgments, and
might have led them to participate in the sin while they lamented its
punishment. It is hard to mourn and not to repine. Affection blinds to
the ill-desert of its objects. Nadab's and Abihu's stark corpses lying
in the forecourt of the sanctuary, and Aaron's dry eyes and undisturbed
attire, proclaim the same truths,--the gravity of the dead men's sin,
and the righteous judgment of God. But the people might sorrow, for
_their_ mourning would help to imprint on them more deeply the lessons
of the dread event.
While the victims' cousins carried their bodies to their graves in the
sand, their father and brothers had to remain in the Tabernacle,
because 'the anointing oil of Jehovah is upon you.' That oil, as the
symbol of the Spirit, separates those on whom it is poured from all
contact with death, from participation in sin, from the weight of
sorrow. What have immortality, righteousness, joy in the Holy Ghost, to
do with these dark shadows? Those whom God has called to His immediate
service must hold themselves apart from earthly passions, and must
control natural affection, if indulging it imperils their clear witness
to God's righteous will.
The prohibition (verses 8-11) of wine and strong drink during the
discharge of the priestly functions seems to suggest that Nadab and
Abihu had committed their sin while in some degree intoxicated. Be that
as it may, the prohibition is rested upon the necessity of preserving,
in all its depth and breadth, the distinction between common and holy
which Nadab and Abihu had broken down. That distinction was to be very
present to the priest in his work, and how could he have the clearness
of mind, the collectedness and composure, the sense of the sanctity of
his office, and ministrations which it requires and gives, if he was
under the influence of strong drink?
Nothing has more power to blur the sharpness of moral and religious
insight than even a small amount of alcohol. God must be worshipped
with clear brain and naturally beating heart. Not the fumes of wine, in
which there lurks almost necessarily the tendency to 'excess,' but the
being 'filled with the Spirit' supplies the only legitimate stimulus to
devotion. Besides the personal reason for abstinence, there was
another,--namely, that only so could the priests teach the people 'the
statutes' of Jehovah. Lips stained from the wine-cup would not be fit
to speak holy words. Words spoken by such would carry no power.
God's servants can never impress on the sluggish conscience of society
their solemn messages from God, unless they are conspicuously free from
self-indulgence, and show by their example the gulf, wide as between
heaven and hell, which parts cleanness from uncleanness. Our lives must
witness to the eternal distinction between good and evil, if we are to
draw men to 'abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is
good.'