聖書注解書

Verse 1. - Nadab and Ahibu are said to have each taken his censer. This is the first time that the word used in the original is translated "censer." It means any vessel or pan that will hold embers or tinder (see Exodus 25:38; Exodus 37:23; Exodus 38:3). They put fire therein, and put incense thereon. No doubt they used the incense ordered in Exodus 30:34. They are not found fault with for the incense, but for the fire that they used. They offered strange fire, that is, fire not taken from the altar of burnt offering, which they might have feared to approach after the miracle that had occurred. In chapter Leviticus 16:12 it is ordered that, on the Day of Atonement, the incense fire should be taken from the brazen altar, and this was no doubt the rule on all occasions, though the law has not been recorded.

Verse 2. - And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured. These are the exact words used in Leviticus 9:24 of the fire that consumed the sacrifices. The fire was the same; its source was the same; its effect was the same, and yet how different! They died before the Lord; that is, they were struck dead at the door of the tabernacle.

Verse 3. - This is that the Lord spake (see Exodus 19:22; Exodus 28:41; Exodus 29:44; Leviticus 8:33). God will be sanctified either by the obedience or by the punishment of those that come nigh him, that is, his priests. If they have greater privileges, they have greater perils (cf. Matthew 11:21). Aaron held his peace - in submission (see Psalm 39:9; Job 1:22), acknowledging that Moses had justified the act of God in executing so terrible a judgment.

Verse 4. - Uzziel was the youngest brother of Amram (see Exodus 6:18-22). His sons, Mishael and Elzaphan, were therefore second cousins of Nadab and Abihu, who are here called their brethren. (Cf. the use of the term "brothers of the Lord," applied probably to his first cousins in the New Testament.)

Verse 5. - They went near, and carried them in their coats out of the camp. Their coats were the tunics which they had put on as their priestly attire (Leviticus 8:13). The lightning flash which had struck them down had not injured their clothes. As Mishael and Elzaphan became ceremonially defiled by contact with the corpses, and as the Passover was now at hand, it has been thought that it was in reference to their case that the concession was made, that those d, filed by a dead body might keep the Passover on the fourteenth day of the second instead of the first month (Numbers 9:6-11). The defilement caused by death ceased when Christ had died.

Verse 6. - Uncover not your heads. They are to abstain from all the conventional signs of mourning, in order to show that they acknowledged the justice of the punishment. The whole house of Israel, that is, the people in general, might mourn the death of their priests, but the high priest and his remaining sons must prove their submission to the Divine chastisement by crushing their individual feelings of sorrow. A murmur on their part would have brought God's wrath on themselves and on the whole congregation, which they represented (Leviticus 4:3). Uncover not your heads may be otherwise translated, Let not your hair fall disheveled (see Leviticus 21:10).

Verse 7. - The priests are not to be taken away from their duties at the door of the tabernacle, that is, the court in front of the tabernacle, even for the sake of burying their dead. They had now been in the court for eight days continuously, and they had to remain there until, in the fulfillment of their public function, they had eaten the sacrificial meal. Cf. Matthew 8:21, 22, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me." God's service comes before all things.

CHAPTER 10:8-20

TO ABSTAIN FROM WINE (verses 8-11). The law given to Aaron (some manuscripts read Moses) against the use of wine by the priests during their ministrations, by its juxtaposition with what has gone before, has led to the probable supposition that Nadab and Abihu had acted under the excitement of intoxicating drink. It is possible that the sacrificial meals on the peace offerings had begun, and that at the same time that the congregation was feasting, the two priests had refreshed themselves with wine after their long service. The special ceremonial meal of the priests had not yet been eaten.