Commentaria in Leviticum
Chapter 10. Synopsis of the Chapter
Nadab and Abiu, offering incense with strange fire, are struck by fire from God and slain. God forbids the priests to mourn them. Secondly, verse 8, God forbids wine and strong drink to the priests about to enter the tabernacle. Thirdly, verse 19, He commands the priests to eat the remains of the sacrifice.
1. And Nadab and Abiu, the sons of Aaron, taking their censers, put fire therein, and incense on it, offering before the Lord strange fire: which was not commanded them. 2. And fire coming out from the Lord devoured them, and they died before the Lord. 3. And Moses said to Aaron: This is what the Lord hath spoken: I will be sanctified in them that approach to me, and I will be glorified in the sight of all the people. And when Aaron heard this, he held his peace. 4. And Moses called Misael and Elisaphan, the sons of Oziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them: Go, and take away your brethren from before the sanctuary, and carry them without the camp. 5. And they went forthwith, and took them as they lay, vested with linen tunics, and cast them forth, as had been commanded them. 6. And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons: Uncover not your heads, and rend not your garments, lest perhaps you die, and indignation come upon all the congregation. Let your brethren, and all the house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath raised up; 7. But you shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle, otherwise you shall perish: for the oil of the holy unction is upon you. And they did all things according to the precept of Moses. 8. The Lord also said to Aaron: 9. Drink no wine nor anything that may make drunk, thou nor thy sons, when you enter into the tabernacle of the testimony, lest you die: because it is an everlasting precept throughout your generations: 10. And that you may have knowledge to discern between holy and unholy, between unclean and clean: 11. And may teach the children of Israel all my ordinances, which the Lord hath spoken to them by the hand of Moses. 12. And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, that were left: Take the sacrifice that remaineth of the oblation of the Lord, and eat it without leaven beside the altar, because it is a holy of holies. 13. And you shall eat it in a holy place, which is given to thee and thy sons, of the oblations of the Lord, as it is commanded me. 14. The breast also that is offered, and the shoulder that is separated, you shall eat in a most clean place, thou and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they are laid up for thee and thy children, of the peace victims of the children of Israel: 15. Because they have elevated the shoulder and the breast, and the fat that is burnt on the altar, before the Lord, and they belong to thee, and to thy sons, by a perpetual law, as the Lord hath commanded. 16. In the meantime, when Moses sought the buck that was offered for sin, he found it burnt; and being angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, that remained, he said: 17. Why did you not eat the victim for sin in the holy place, which is a holy of holies, and is given to you, that you may bear the iniquity of the multitude, and make atonement for it in the sight of the Lord, 18. Especially whereas none of the blood thereof was carried within the holies, and you ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as was commanded me? 19. And Aaron answered: This day the victim for sin and the holocaust were offered before the Lord: and as to me, this hath befallen me which thou seest: how could I eat it, or please the Lord in the ceremonies with a sorrowful heart? 20. Which when Moses heard, he was satisfied.
Verse 1. And Nadab and Abiu, the sons of Aaron, taking their censers.—The Hebrew is, and they took their censers, namely those which hung at the altar of holocausts, that, filling them with incense, they might enter the Sanctuary and burn it upon the altar of incense, as had been commanded in Exodus 30, verses 8 and 20.
These, the elder and more worthy sons of Aaron, seem to have wished, after their father, to enter upon the first-fruits of their own ministry, and in thanksgiving to burn incense. Whence these things seem to have happened on the eighth day, that is, on the same day on which Aaron celebrated his first-fruits, or certainly a little after; for as the first duty of a priest was to immolate, which Aaron had already done, so the second was to burn incense, which these were now intending to do; the third was to light the lamps.
Offering before the Lord strange fire.—In the court of the tabernacle, namely upon the altar of holocausts, there was sacred fire fallen from heaven, which God had commanded to be kept up, so that they should use this alone for the sacrifices and for the incense, as I said in the preceding chapter, verse 24.
There was in the same court a profane and common fire, which they used for cooking the flesh of the peace victim and of the victim for sin, on which they fed in the court, partly the priests, partly the lay offerers. The same they had used for domestic purposes, Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, during the seven days of their consecration, in which they continually remained in the tabernacle. With this profane fire, therefore, which ought to have been alien to sacred things, Nadab and Abiu, in their incensing, made use of it as if sacred, “before the Lord,” that is, before the altar of holocausts and before the door of the tabernacle. Not, however, before the altar of incense (for on this the incense was to be burnt by means of the censers), which was before the Lord dwelling upon the propitiatory and in the Holy of Holies.
You will ask, whence did this fall befall Nadab and Abiu, that they used profane fire for burning the incense?
First. The Hebrews think that they did this from drunkenness, because, being drunk, they knew not what they did. So R. Simeon, R. Moses, R. Solomon. This opinion is favoured by the fact that the Lord, after the death of Nadab and Abiu, presently, in verse 8, forbids Aaron and the priests, about to enter the tabernacle, wine and everything that can intoxicate.
For this caution and law raises the suspicion that they were tipsy, though not wholly drunk: for Scripture would not have been silent on this, and if they had been plainly drunk they would have been powerless and unfit to prepare and burn the incense.
Secondly. It might be said that they did this from inconsideration and perturbation; for so we see that newly ordained priests, inexperienced, timid and flustered, commit many errors in their first offices.
Thirdly, and most probably, it may be said that they, when by the force of the sudden fire gliding down from heaven (see the preceding chapter, verse 24) they beheld the victims devoured, partly exulting at the novelty of the miracle, partly stricken and perturbed, did not dare to approach the altar to take sacred fire from it, but, hastily snatching fire from elsewhere, offered incense to the Lord in thanksgiving: for joy at the fire given from heaven spurred them on to this, but fear terrified them so that they dared not touch it; this is what the word “taking” signifies, which connects this history with the history of the divine fire in the preceding chapter. Hence these sons of Aaron were not free from the guilt of disobedience, yet they signified rather than committed a more damnable crime, says Radulphus. For youth, as it is fervent, so is it headlong and inconsiderate, so that Socrates, being rightly asked what is the virtue of the young, said: “Nothing too much.”
Tropologically, first, strange fire signifies heresies and the dogmas of innovators alien to the faith. So Hesychius, Bede, and St. Cyprian, book On the Unity of the Church. Hence Nadab, which in Hebrew signifies spontaneous, and Abiu, signifying his father, denote those who, not called by God, but of their own accord thrust themselves into sacred things; or usurp the priestly office on the pretext of carnal descent, or by the recommendation of powerful kinsmen. So Radulphus.
Secondly, strange fire is any cupidity, which is contrary to the sacred fire, that is, to charity; for charity is fire sent from heaven, and infused into the soul by God; but fire is strange when the soul burns with anger, avarice, lust, says Radulphus: for these God does not suggest and infuse into the soul, but the flesh or the devil.
Which was not commanded them—that is, which had been forbidden them: otherwise they would not have sinned, nor been punished with death. It is a litotes: see Canon 96. Hence it is clear that the law against using strange fire in sacred things had been laid down by God, even though hitherto Scripture has nowhere expressed it. Yet it sufficiently insinuates it in chapter 6, verse 9, when it says: “The fire on the altar shall always burn,” as I said there. For although that law speaks expressly only of victims, yet by parity, or rather by greater reason, it seems to be extended to the frankincense and the incense. For this is called “the Holy of holies” in Exodus 30:36. Whence also the victims were burnt in the court before the Holy, but the incense in the Holy before the Holy of Holies.
of the Lord, from the altar of holocausts fire was sent upon them, when they were making for the Sanctuary and the altar of incense: for before they reached it and burnt the incense, they were slain before the tabernacle, or the Holy, in its court; for this is what “they died before the Lord” signifies, that is, before the door of the tabernacle.