Aaron’s Loss
Leviticus 10 begins with the family of Aaron experiencing two losses.
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.
Leviticus 10:1-2
Because of the position which they held, the immediate family was not allowed to handle the bodies in preparation for burial. Nor were they allowed time away from service for mourning. Therefore, this responsibility fell to sons of Aaron’s uncle.
And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come near; carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp.”
Leviticus 10:4
While many in priestly service were allowed these things (for close relatives, at least), those who were anointed for the highest service were not. This would be recorded as a command later in the book.
He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 21:11-12
And so they were not allowed even to participate with Israel in mourning their dead.
And do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.
Leviticus 10:7
The Heavy Responsibilities
It is striking, to me, that what follows this text is not a human element recounting the emotional hardship Aaron’s family was experiencing, but rather God providing still more instruction on how they are to properly perform the service of honoring him.
Until verse 16, God continues to teach the family all of the ordinances necessary for them to serve as an example of sanctification and also teach the people his commands.
You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.
Leviticus 10:10-11
It is a hard obligation and, as we will soon learn, something too hard for Aaron and his sons to perfectly bear.
Vulnerability is Acknowledged
After all of this further instruction, Moses asks around and comes to realize they have not offered the sin offering as normal. It was the duty of the priests to eat the flesh of the sin offering and to bring its blood into the sanctuary as a demonstration of them bringing the sins of the congregation before God. However, this day they had eaten none of it, nor brought in the blood.
Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up! And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the surviving sons of Aaron, saying, “Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord? Behold, its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary. You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.”
Leviticus 10:16-18
Aaron and his surviving sons were the only ones able to perform this service, yet they had just lost people who were near to them. In their grief, it seems likely they were unable to eat and therefore were incapable of performing their service as normal.
Aaron’s family had again failed to perform their duties as prescribed, yet the response will be far different this time.
And Aaron said to Moses, “Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, and yet such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the Lord have approved?” And when Moses heard that, he approved.
Leviticus 10:19-20
In the first case, Nadab and Abihu had set out to honor God as they saw fit. The problem is, we can never honor God more in performance than we can in obedience. There are other examples (such as Saul in 1 Samuel 13) of people deciding for themselves how best to honor God, and in every case judgement is due.
However, in the case of the sin offering, it is not that they thought they had found a better way than obedience. Rather, in their emotionally vulnerable state, they were unable to perform the service as prescribed. God’s response to our weakness is much different, as we can see here with Moses’s approval.
Willing Spirit
Jesus speaks to this reality among his disciples when they are told to keep watch but continue to succumb to sleep in Matthew 26 as well.
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Matthew 26:41
There are going to be cases where our lack of obedience is not out of arrogance but weakness. This doesn’t come as a surprise to God, who knows our frailty better than we do. Nor does our weakness exclude us from a relationship with him.
While we should never use weakness as an excuse, when we desire to serve God but fall short of perfection it should never be viewed as hopeless. Our best in this life will never live up to the standards that God’s perfection demands. Christ’s perfect obedience is sufficient for all who are walking by faith, yet we have still been called to walk in faith!
Jesus understands our weaknesses. He knows our struggles. When we serve him with all of our strength, we will still come up short of what we’d wished we could have done. However, there is no condemnation in that. God has a purpose even in our weakness.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
2 Corinthians 4:7
