Shortly after worship at the tabernacle began (presumably the same day), disaster struck. Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu "each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them" (Lev 10:1). Fire from God then quickly killed them (v 2).
There are different possibilities for what the sin of Nadab and Abihu might have been. The phrase "which I had not commanded them", the first-person version of the phrase "which he had not commanded them" in verse 1, occurs elsewhere in divine warnings against idolatry (Deut 18:20; Jer 7:31; 19:5), which raises the possibility that the "unauthorized fire" was connected with a pagan worship practice.
Commentator Richard Hess finds further clues for this possibility in the names of the sons of Aaron. Abihu means "he is my father," and Aaron was the one responsible for the golden calf (Exod 32:2-5). Later the idolatrous Jeroboam would name his sons Nadab and Abijah (1 Kings 14).
Hess also points out some extrabiblical evidence in a thirteenth-century B.C. clay tablet from Emar, an ancient Syrian city. This tablet, designated number 369, describes a week-long ordination ritual for a priestess of the storm god Addu. At the end of the week, a procession led the priestess to her new home in the temple of Addu. Significantly, the procession included a torchbearer bringing fire to the temple. Perhaps Nadab and Abihu were bringing pagan elements into the Israelite ceremony through their unauthorized fire.
The Hebrew word for "unauthorized" in Lev 10:1 also appears in Exodus 30:9 in connection with incense offered at the tabernacle. The same word appears in 2 Kings 19:24 in reference to the "foreign" waters of Egypt. The incense that Nadab and Abihu offered could have differed from the prescribed type.
There are two further clues in Leviticus. In Lev 10:9, God specifies that priests not drink while on duty. This suggests that Nadab and Abihu may have been operating under impaired judgment caused by the consumption of alcohol.
Then in Lev 16:1-2, God gives the instruction that priests were not to enter the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle or temple, except for the high priest on the Day of Atonement. The instruction is connected in the narrative to the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, suggesting that Nadab and Abihu may have entered the Most Holy Place with their censers.
Whatever the precise details of their infraction, their punishment sent the strong message that Israel needed to worship God on his terms. In the initial stages of some phase of his plan, God may exercise severity to keep his program on track and guide a community in the right direction. The punishments given to Achan (Joshua 7) and to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) are further examples of this pattern.
Aaron, of course, would have been shocked by what happened. Lev 10:3 says that Aaron "held his peace," a response for which he usually is viewed favorably. Aaron and his remaining sons were forbidden from visibly mourning in this instance. For a high priest, mourning any death was out of the question (Lev 21:10-12). An ordinary priest normally could mourn for a close relative (Lev 21:1-3), but that was not allowed in this case. Commentator Gordon Wenham observes that it would have been detrimental to the spiritual health of the whole community if the family were to imply in any way that they condoned the sins of Nadab and Abihu or disagreed with God's judgment.
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