Leviticus 10: 1 – 20
Underserved Superstars
10 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. 2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. 3 And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.’” So Aaron held his peace. 4 Then Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.” 5 So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said. 6 And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled. 7 You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses. 8 Then the LORD spoke to Aaron, saying: 9 “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, 10 that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, 11 and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.” 12 And Moses spoke to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons who were left: “Take the grain offering that remains of the offerings made by fire to the LORD, and eat it without leaven beside the altar; for it is most holy. 13 You shall eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due, of the sacrifices made by fire to the LORD; for so I have been commanded. 14 The breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering you shall eat in a clean place, you, your sons, and your daughters with you; for they are your due and your sons’ due, which are given from the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel. 15 The thigh of the heave offering and the breast of the wave offering they shall bring with the offerings of fat made by fire, to offer as a wave offering before the LORD. And it shall be yours and your sons’ with you, by a statute forever, as the LORD has commanded.” 16 Then Moses made careful inquiry about the goat of the sin offering, and there it was—burned up. And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left, saying, 17 “Why have you not eaten the sin offering in a holy place, since it is most holy, and God has given it to you to bear the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? 18 See! Its blood was not brought inside the holy place; indeed you should have eaten it in a holy place, as I commanded.” 19 And Aaron said to Moses, “Look, this day they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and such things have befallen me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would it have been accepted in the sight of the LORD?” 20 So when Moses heard that, he was content.
In the New Testament in the fifteenth chapter we read, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Our Holy God has not left us down here to stumble around hoping somehow to be able to live a righteous life. He has given us His Word to guide us along the paths of life. So, as we read about the stories our Precious Holy Spirit has put down in writing and does our best to obey His directions then we have a pretty good chance to have success in our time here on earth.
There are three books which are called the Pastoral letters which are the two letters to Timothy and one to Titus. In other words if anyone aspires to serve our Great and Holy God there is listed some directions of what to look out for in picking someone. The bible says this in the book of 1st Timothy 3 that “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; 4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. 7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”
I think the lesson that we can learn from this report is that you cannot just think that because God has picked a man to be His representative that the mantle of service automatically passes on to his sons. If you were willing to do a study through the bible of men who were special to God in their personal lives that their sons did not follow suit.
Look at the book of Judges. Remember the Levite who was hired to be a pagan priest to the rich guy by the name of Micah. Sadly, we come to realize that he was the grandson of Moses as we read in chapter 18 of the book of Judges, “30 Then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.”
Gershom was the son of Moses as we read in the book of Exodus chapter 2 verse 22, “And she bore him a son. He called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.” In just a short while even the grandson of one of the most revered Jews had walked away from the Lord’s path.
Let me give you another example from the book of 1st Samuel chapter 2 regarding the sons of Eli the High Priest, “12 Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the LORD. 13 And the priests’ custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. 14 Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and the priest would take for himself all that the flesh hook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. 15 Also, before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, “Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw.” 16 And if the man said to him, “They should really burn the fat first; then you may take as much as your heart desires,” he would then answer him, “No, but you must give it now; and if not, I will take it by force.” 17 Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.
Paul the apostle asks in his epistles many times for prayer in order to continue to serve the Lord properly. This request needs to include the children of men who serve the Lord today. Sadly, many children of the Senior Pastor are spoiled. They live and receive praise from the members of the church because they are the Pastor’s kids. This false sense of praise actually does them more harm than benefit. They wind up inheriting the church from their dads even though they were not called to do so by our Holy Master. Like I said in the title of this message they become underserved superstars even though they did nothing to deserve the titles.
We are going to learn about two of Aaron’s sons because of their family relationship became priests. However, their hearts were not right. We will see what they pulled and the consequence that resulted from their horrible sins.
As often when there is blessing, disobedience comes. Men have a strange ability to forget their own weakness and begin to think that they know better than God, to declare, ‘I am the captain of my soul, I am the master of my fate’, even at such times as this. And thus it was with Aaron’s elder sons. In overweening pride, or overweening folly, or both, they ignored what God had revealed and chose to follow their own way. They offered what Yahweh had not laid down in a way that demonstrated that they despised the set service of the tabernacle. They did not fully follow His will. Were they not now superior to common mortals? Had they not been with Yahweh in the Mount? (Exodus 24.9). Could they not now lead the way with their own innovations?
This whole chapter concerns the holiness of God and the necessity for His people to be fully holy if they are to meet with Him. It first declares that His ordinances must be followed exactly. It then goes on to declare that the priests, in preparation for their service, are to keep away from alcohol when about to enter His presence, are to be careful to discern at all times between what is clean and unclean, and are therefore to avoid all that is ‘unclean’, and that they are to ensure that the people are made fully aware of all covenant requirements, that they sin not in any way. It commences with this example of those who failed in holiness, and died for it, and then goes on to deal with various requirements in order to maintain the holiness of the Sanctuary, all of which are made more serious by these untimely deaths of those who failed to discern God’s holiness. The stress all through is on the holiness of God.
10 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, transgressed against the holiness of God. They treated holy things lightly, and brought God’s judgment on themselves. When dealing with God we too need always to remember with Whom we have to do.
As sons of Aaron Nadab and Abihu might possibly one day have had the right as His servants to put fire in the holy censers from the altar of incense, and to put incense on it, and bear it within the veil (if Aaron was unwittingly ceremonially unclean or ill on the Day of Atonement), and they would certainly have had the right to offer incense on the altar of incense at the time of the morning and evening sacrifices that its odor might go within the veil. But the right was carefully restricted and limited. God must not be demeaned, nor must His holy things be treated lightly. He had given no authority otherwise to burn incense in censers.
So what they had not the right to do was to ‘do their own thing’. Indeed at such a time at this when the very priesthood was new, such an attitude would only lead swiftly into error. It had to be severely dealt with. We must recognize that what they did was done deliberately and with an ungodly attitude. They would certainly have had to hide what they were about from Aaron and their other brothers.
It was called strange fire because it was unauthorized fire. It may be that the coals had not been taken from the altar of incense, the altar ‘before Yahweh’ (Leviticus 16.12), and thus were not holy (they probably had to sneak in their ashes for otherwise Aaron would have asked what they were doing), that the censers were their own and not sanctified, and that the incense was not of the prescribed type and was therefore also not holy (Exodus 30.9). Thus would they be bringing in what was not holy to the Holy Place? That was bad enough. But what was far worse was that they did in His Holy Place what Yahweh had not commanded. They grossly slighted Yahweh. They took to themselves the right to worship in ways that Yahweh had not commanded or revealed, in a way that was not acceptable, and they did it in Yahweh’s very presence. It revealed an attitude of heart that was thoroughly blasphemous.
Had it not been stopped it would have led to an ‘anything goes’ situation. Ask yourself if this action taken against these two men was too punitive? We may hesitate at the seriousness of the penalty. But consider the situation. They had been by their own voluntary will sanctified as God’s priests. They had taken on a holy appointment. They had sworn to obey Yahweh absolutely. They had been made ‘holy to Him’. But now they had demonstrated that in heart they were not so. They could not be allowed therefore to continue as priests. What then was to be done? They were holy to Yahweh. They could not therefore return to what they had been. There could only be one solution, that Yahweh would remove them by fire as was done with all sanctified things that were no longer of use or that were offered to Him. (What happened to them then was between God and them).
2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
We do not know whether Aaron’s sons were just rash and arrogant, or foolishly deliberately blasphemous, recklessly following examples that they had seen elsewhere, but either way they were deliberately doing the very thing that Yahweh had warned against, following the ways of the nations. They were being deliberately disobedient ‘with a high hand’. There is no hiding from that. And the penalty for that, as they well knew, was death. It had to be dealt with severely for the sake of future generations. For the lesson must be learned at any cost that there must be no innovations on top of what Yahweh had commanded. They offered up strange fire, Yahweh dealt with it by the fire of judgment. They were ‘devoted’ (given over to judgment) to Yahweh. ‘They died before Yahweh’ might be seen as indicating that it was within the Holy Place. God took His disobedient ‘holy ones’ to Himself.
It must be noted that this was not just a rash mistake. It was a deliberate flouting of Yahweh’s prescribed way of worship because of their contempt for what was prescribed. And such flouting of His ways had to be cut off immediately before it became worse. If God’s revelation was to continue unmarred then there was no alternative to severe action that would be a once for all warning (but still unheeded by the foolish) of what would happen to those who distorted God’s ways.
3 And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.’” So Aaron held his peace.
Moses then communicated to the grieving father a message from Yahweh, explaining why He had done what He had done. Those who approached Him as priests must do so in a way that reveals Him for what He is, (‘sanctifies’ Him, sets Him apart in His distinctive holiness) not in a way that disparages Him or reveals Him as just another local god and they must do it in a way that glorifies Him before the people. It was a serious responsibility. Aaron did not reply. He had to recognize that what God had done was just. By their action his sons had at their very inauguration reduced the living God to a nonentity who flew around in the air looking for sweet odors. They had demeaned God before the people.
4 Then Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.” 5 So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.
The priesthood, now established, had to continue unchecked. Moses therefore called on close relatives of the dead men to remove their bodies. Their bodies had to be taken outside the camp, the fate of all ‘devoted’ things, and had to be buried by close relatives. But this could not be by Aaron and his sons for it would have rendered them ‘unclean’. Thus he chose the best alternative.
6 And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled.
Then Moses warned Aaron and the two surviving brothers that in spite of their natural grief they must not show signs of mourning while still serving in the tabernacle, for to bring tokens of death into the tabernacle was forbidden. They must retain their caps and their robes in place, and fulfill their duties in the required way, lest they die. For they were now the anointed of Yahweh ministering in the Holy Place, and for them to fail to do such things would be to incur the holy wrath of God, not only on themselves, but on the whole of Israel. It would be to defile the Holy Place. Their unique ministry must continue at all costs. They must leave the mourning to the remainder of their family and to the people of Israel, each until his time of service was complete.
7 You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.
‘For the anointing oil of Yahweh is on you.’ The point would seem to be that their time of duty must be completed because they were anointed priests and must fulfill their duties as such. These could not be broken into by outside circumstances. Those in special positions of privilege must live in accordance with the privilege, and not allow personal matters to interfere. Great privilege brings great responsibility. As men set apart to Yahweh by the holy oil their first duty was to His service. It came even before the demands of family.
Fortunately, unlike their brothers they were determined to remain faithful to the command of Yahweh even though it might prove difficult in trying circumstances, and they remained to carry out their responsibilities. Sometimes God asks hard things of us, and by our faithfulness to Him and His service we will be assessed.
Because of what has happened Yahweh now speaks directly to Aaron about the priestly responsibility for the maintenance of the holiness of the Sanctuary. This, coming after what has happened, links the words back to the previous events and may serve to confirm that Nadab and Abihu had been drunk. His warning is threefold. The lesson that must be learned is that priests must never enter the tabernacle under the influence of alcohol and therefore in a state unworthy of being in the presence of Yahweh, they must be careful to distinguish the clean from the unclean, so that they do not enter the tabernacle unclean and defile it, and they must ensure that all the people are fully aware of all God’s requirements so that they also do not offend in these ways. Each of these instructions is to ensure the maintenance of the holiness of the Sanctuary and its precincts, stressing the holiness of God.
You would think in our time and day on the earth that if one was a minister to the Lord that the lesson would be learned. There are today some churches of our Lord Jesus Christ that condone alcohol served during various occasions. In addition there are some deceived Pastors that hold services at bars. I am amazed that they feel no conviction for their actions. In fact they brag about going to wear the non-believers are.
If we in our turn had more concern for the holiness of God there would be much that we now do which we would not do. Our great problem is that we fail to recognize how by our behavior we defile the holy name by which we are called. But the consequences will not be less, they are merely delayed. That is why we must come to His light continually for cleansing through His blood (1 John 1.7).
8 Then the LORD spoke to Aaron, saying: 9 “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations,
Please notice that our Holy and Loving God speaks directly to Aaron, demonstrating his new status. From now on until chapter 15 God will speak sometimes ‘to Moses and to Aaron’ and sometimes just ‘to Moses’. The alternation suggests that the aim is to bring in Aaron while retaining the priority of Moses. But speaking solely to Aaron here, the only example, demonstrates the importance of the subject for Aaron. It is he and his remaining sons who are directly responsible for maintaining the holiness of the Sanctuary.
The first important requirement is that priests do not enter the tent of meeting while under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol dulls the senses and clearly makes someone ‘blemished’. Only those in full possession of their faculties must enter the Sanctuary, for anything less is not worthy of God. God requires the very best. Thus to be under the influence of alcohol is clearly to be ‘unclean’. And the uncleanness remains until the total effects of the alcohol have worn off.
The servants of the Lord needs to understand fully that if they do enter under the influence of alcohol they will be in danger of immediate death, for it will be seen as a direct insult to the holiness of God. This is a statute which is permanent for all time, stressing its seriousness. God does not find drunkenness amusing. Paul takes this up with respect to Christian worship when he says, ‘Do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, singing to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things’ (Ephesians 5.18-20). This makes quite clear that a state of inebriation is dishonoring to God. To be in such a state is to be less than the best for God, and is to debar us from His presence.
10 that you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean,
The next important point is the distinction between the holy and the common (the unholy), the clean and the unclean. This distinction will be taken up later in Leviticus in detail. But the point is being made by it that God Is Holy, and that nothing that comes short of that holiness is to be permitted into His presence. Nothing ritually unclean must enter the Sanctuary and its precincts, for it will defile it. So God enjoins that it is to be the responsibility of the priests to make the distinction and see that it is observed.
Uncleanness covers a wide variety of things and states, from differences between what may be eaten and what may not, and what may be touched and what may not, to bodily imperfections and discharges, to uncleanness resulting from contact with death, and so on, to uncleanness caused by disobedience to God’s commandments, and such uncleanness must be removed before men enter the Sanctuary. For God Is Holy, and it is the priest’s duty to discern whether men are clean or unclean, and to instruct them on all such matters so that they may themselves discern their own state. The stress is on the importance of keeping the Sanctuary and its precincts holy so as to bring home the holiness of God. It meant that the concern for holiness would become a daily concern for all the people, both physically and morally.
11 and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.”
The idea here is that for anyone to come short of God’s requirements is to be rendered unclean. Thus it is the duty of the priesthood to make all aware of God’s statutes and requirements, both with regard to ritual and with regard to life. God’s people must seek at all times to avoid all possible sources of defilement. They too must be holy
For us the question must always be, how can we ensure that we are the best for God? What should we avoid that might make us less than the best? In our case it is spiritual cleanness that we must encourage, and spiritual uncleanness that we must avoid. And we should be daily concerned that we do so. We must not enter His presence unclean.
He now moves on to the portions of the Priests from grain offerings and from peace sacrifices and the distinctions concerning the holiness of them. It is again concerned with the question of the holiness of the Sanctuary. What is ‘most holy’ must be eaten before Yahweh. It must not be defiled by being taken from the Sanctuary. But what is merely ‘holy’ can be shared by the priests with their families in any ‘clean place’. For the people themselves are a holy nation.
12 And Moses spoke to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons who were left: “Take the grain offering that remains of the offerings made by fire to the LORD, and eat it without leaven beside the altar; for it is most holy. 13 You shall eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due, of the sacrifices made by fire to the LORD; for so I have been commanded.
The grain offering was ‘most holy’. It was an offering to God ‘made by fire’, that is wholly given to God. It was an offering from the people. And as such it must be contained and eaten within the Sanctuary. There it could be eaten by the priests ‘without leaven’ (for it must not be marred in any way) in the place where the altar was situated (thus they were seen as eating it as an offering) for it was given to them by God as a portion for their benefit, and they ate it in His name. Because they were God’s anointed priests this was seen as God receiving it through them.
So may we through coming to Him and believing on Him partake of Him Who Is the Bread of Life (John 6.35). But we must recognize that what we partake of is ‘most holy’. That we can come to Him daily through faith, continually receiving His power and His fullness (Ephesians 3.16-19), and having Christ living in us (Galatians 2.20), is something which must never be treated lightly. When we so come we must ensure that there is no ‘leaven’ in our lives, nothing that is corrupting, no influence of the world, and we must recognize that He is ours through the altar, that is, through His offering Himself to death for us on the cross (Hebrews 13.10). Without that we could not know Him.
14 The breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering you shall eat in a clean place, you, your sons, and your daughters with you; for they are your due and your sons’ due, which are given from the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel. 15 The thigh of the heave offering and the breast of the wave offering they shall bring with the offerings of fat made by fire, to offer as a wave offering before the LORD. And it shall be yours and your sons’ with you, by a statute forever, as the LORD has commanded.”
However, the wave breast and the contribution thigh of a peace sacrifice is holy but not ‘most holy’. They are the priest’s portion of what may be eaten by all who are clean, the flesh of the sacrifice. They must be waved before Yahweh, but then they can feed the priest’s family, both male and female as long as it is in a clean place (one not affected by defilement from anything unclean). ‘
16 Then Moses made careful inquiry about the goat of the sin offering, and there it was—burned up. And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left, saying,
His anger centered on ‘the sons of Aaron who were left’, a deliberate reminder of what had happened earlier that day. They surely should have ensured the correct carrying out of the ritual. Were they being rebellious like their brothers?
17 “Why have you not eaten the sin offering in a holy place, since it is most holy, and God has given it to you to bear the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? 18 See! Its blood was not brought inside the holy place; indeed you should have eaten it in a holy place, as I commanded.”
His question was specific. Why had they burnt the flesh of the purification for sin offering offered on behalf of the people, and not eaten it. They should have eaten it ‘in the place of the Sanctuary’, that is, within the tabernacle precincts, for that was all a part of bearing the iniquity of the one offering the sacrifice. The purification for sin offering must be mainly burnt on the altar with the flesh eaten by the priests in order to bear the iniquity of the offerer and to make atonement for him. In this case the ‘him’ was the people of Israel. This description reveals how the holiness of the priests renders even the ‘sin’ content holy. It is neutralized through forgiveness and atonement, through ‘covering’.
But we can understand their confusion as beginners in the priesthood. Usually when purification for sin offering was made either for a priest or for ‘the whole congregation’ its blood was taken within the Holy Place and offered before the veil, and the whole carcass apart from the fat and vital parts was burned outside the camp in a clean place. But in the case of the Priest’s offering this day that had not been done. Should they then have eaten of the Priest’s offering? The answer, even in Moses’ eyes was clearly, No. The priests could not eat of the purification for sin offering of one of their own. He was not questioning that.
In Moses’ eyes the question seemed different when it came to the offering on behalf of ‘the people’. Possibly because the elders had brought the offering he did not consider that that offering must also include the two brothers, although they had not strictly been included in Aaron’s offering. Moses, however, probably considered that they had. He no doubt saw the priesthood as one. It was a matter of interpretation. Thus because unusually the blood had not been presented in the Holy Place (possibly because it was for the people and not the whole congregation) he considered that it could be eaten by the priests. Probably the two brothers had taken the opposite view, that because the purification for sin offering included themselves they should not eat of it, and had been terrified at the thought of eating the purification for sin offering wrongly. We may assume from what followed that they appealed to their father, whose decision it had probably been.
19 And Aaron said to Moses, “Look, this day they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and such things have befallen me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would it have been accepted in the sight of the LORD?”
For Aaron, wiser and older, steps in to deal with the situation. He does not argue one case or the other. He points out that the two young men had this very day offered their purification for sin offering and their whole burnt offerings before Yahweh. They are concerned for their sin and dedication. He does not define which he sees as theirs. That is not the grounds on which he is going to argue.
Then he draws attention to his own position. How does Moses see his case? After his offerings for himself he had endured unbearable events. He was in great grief. His heart was in mourning (. That in it made his position difficult. He could carry on his service, but he could not avoid what was in his heart, and the hurt and grief he felt. And Yahweh would be aware of it. Also, it is possible that Aaron now is reminded of his sinful act in making the molded image, yet he was not slain. He was spared and actually promoted to be the High Priest. Could it be possible that his sons observing all these things did not realize the punishment they would receive since dad was spared for his offense?
And what was more, it had been his own sons, the sons of his house, who had blasphemed Yahweh and endured His judgment and wrath. Was he then in any position to partake of the purification for sin offering of the people, and were his other sons in any better position. Was not their whole house in some sense guilty on this day? They would carry out their duty, but would the eating of the purification for sin offering by them have been pleasing in the sight of Yahweh when they were in a very real sense identified with those who had been slain? Would it not rather have made his family even more guilty? In that situation how could they profess to bear the sin of the people? Surely it were better on this day that the whole offering be offered by fire directly to Yahweh that He might absorb and neutralise through ‘covering’ the sin of the people, while he and his sons purged their sons/brothers’ offence? Was he now also burdened with guilt that his sin contributed to his boys death?
20 So when Moses heard that, he was content.
Moses recognized the justice of what Aaron had said. He recognized their dilemma and was satisfied. This had been no rebellion against the will of Yahweh by Aaron and his remaining sons, but recognition of their own mourning and their own indirect participation in the sin of their son and brothers. The house of Aaron had sinned that day, and were in mourning over the consequences of sin (for in Hebrew though the sin of one in a family was in some sense the sin of all). How then could Aaron and his sons be seen as partaking of the purification for sin offering of the people, absorbing its holiness and rectifying their sin by ‘covering’ (atonement) and forgiveness? Would it not cause doubt in the people’s minds? Surely it was better that the holiness be absorbed by the altar, and the sin be covered and atoned for by God?
‘It was well-pleasing in his sight.’ Moses recognized that all was well. He recognized that this had not been done lightly, but had been done with a full consideration of the factors that had resulted in the decision.
