Dr Paul Allen

The Old Testament is filled with odd stories that take us by surprise. One of those stories is found in a book that is, to say the least, pretty foreign to our modern worldview. I’m talking about Leviticus and, for this topic, Leviticus 10 specifically: the story of Nadav and Avihu, or as we like to say, Nadab and Abihu. It’s is a short episode, and I am going to read the whole thing: Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, 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. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace. The passage shocks most readers . The punishment seems overly harsh for what appears to us to be a small offence, whatever the offence was, which, of cours...

Image via Wikipedia LEVITICUS 10:1–11 “ Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the LORD has said, Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified’ ” (v. 3a). The holiness of God is one of the divine attributes most emphasized in Scripture. Moreover, few stories show more clearly how the Lord’s holiness is non-negotiable than the account of what happened to Nadab and Abihu when they offered “unauthorized fire” in the burning of incense (Lev. 10:1–11). In recounting this story, Moses never tells us why the fire was unauthorized, and commentators’ attempts fill in this blank are numerous. It may be that they offered the incense at the wrong time, with the wrong coals, or it may be that they burned another kind of incense than that described in Exodus 30:34–38. Yet whether any of these reasons or others prompted God to judge Nadab and Abihu, the important thing to note is that it was basic disobedience to one of the Lord’s statutes that...