Leviticus 10:2

_AND THERE WENT OUT FIRE FROM THE LORD, AND DEVOURED THEM, AND THEY DIED BEFORE THE LORD._ Fire from the Lord ... devoured them - rather, killed them; for it appears (Leviticus 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; and 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 (Acts 5:1)....

1,2 Next to Moses and Aaron, none were more likely to be honourable in Israel than Nadab and Abihu. There is reason to think that they were puffed up with pride, and that they were heated with wine. While the people were prostrate before the Lord, adoring his presence and glory, they rushed into the tabernacle to burn incense, though not at the appointed time; both together, instead of one alone, and with fire not taken from the altar. If it had been done through ignorance, they had been allowed to bring a sin-offering. But the soul that doeth presumptuously, and in contempt of God's majesty and justice, that soul shall be cut off. The wages of sin is death. They died in the very act of their sin. The sin and punishment of these priests showed the imperfection of that priesthood from the very beginning, and that it could not shelter any from the fire of God's wrath, otherwise than as it...

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 2 Corinthians 2:16....

EXPOSITION THE DEATH OF NADAB AND ABIHU, THE SONS OF AARON (Leviticus 10:1). The first day of Aaron's ministry had not yet closed. He had offered the sacrifices, and had entered into the holy place with Moses, and had returned to the court of the tabernacle, where the people had been standing in mute expectation, and God had shown his approval and his confirmation of him in his priestly acts by consuming the sacrifices, as they lay on the altar, with a miraculous fire emblematic of himself, when a rash act on the part of his two eldest children changed the day from one of rejoicing to one of mourning. It would seem that Nadab and Abihu, being already in a slate of exaltation from the events of the day, in

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 Leviticus 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, o

3. NADAB AND ABIHU: THE FALSE WORSHIP AND ITS RESULTS CHAPTER 10 _ 1. The false worship and the judgment (Leviticus 10:1)_ 2. New instructions (Leviticus 10:8) 3. The neglect of Eleazar and Ithamar (Leviticus 10:16) The ceremonies were ended and the people, beholding the glory of the Lord, had worshipped. A terrible occurrence follows the beautiful ending to the previous chapter. Nadab and Abihu, two sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before Jehovah. The fire before Jehovah devoured them and they died before the Lord. The sin consisted in taking strange fire, which Jehovah had not commanded; most likely it was fire they produced themselves, instead of taking the fire f

LEV X contains four appendices on the priests-' duties, of which the first and the fourth are in the form of ideal narratives (a caution and a misunderstanding), like chs. 8f. LEVITICUS 10:1. THE SIN OF NADAB AND ABIHU. Nadab and Abihu, the eldest sons of Aaron (Exodus 6:23), had been privileged to go up and see the God of Israel with Moses and Aaron and seventy elders (Exodus 24:1 ff., J). Here, they offer fire which has not been taken from the altar hearth or was not in accordance with the proper receipt for the sacred incense, and are themselves at once consumed. The bodies are withdrawn from the camp by their father's cousins, and Aaron and his remaining sons are forbidden to mourn for them. The catastrophe i

FROM. from before. DEVOURED THEM. slew them; for they were not consumed, as is shown in Leviticus 10:4 and Leviticus 10:6. Note the three fires here: (1) the fire of true worship (Leviticus 9:24); (2) the strange fire of false worship (Leviticus 10:1); (3) the devouring fire of judgment (Leviticus 10:2). DIED BEFORE THE LORD: i.e. in the court of the sanctuary, where their sin had been committed....

(3) _The first priestly transgression and its punishment_(1 7) 1. Nadab and Abihu were specially chosen to -come up unto the Lord" with Moses, Aaron and the 70 elders (Exodus 24:1; Exodus 24:9-11, the only reference to these sons of Aaron outside P). _his censer_ The Heb. word is used in this sense here, in ch. Leviticus 16:12 (of Aaron on the Day of Atonement), and in Numbers 16 (the censers of Korah and his company, and of Aaron). A dish or pan for carrying live coal is meant. _offered strange fire_ This is sometimes explained as fire not taken from the altar of Burnt-Offering (cp....

THERE WENT OUT FIRE FROM THE LORD, AND DEVOURED THEM— Rather, _and destroyed them;_ blasting them like lightning: for their cloaths were not consumed; see Leviticus 10:5. Hence it is, as Grotius and Lamy observe, that the Jews derive their custom of strangling or suffocating those who were condemned to be burnt, without reducing them to ashes. Bishop Hall observes, that "they were the rather punished as being the sons of Aaron: for if the children of religious parents, after all Christian nurture, shame their education, God takes it more heinously, and revenges it more sharply: the more bonds of duty, the more plagues of neglect....