Leviticus 9:23,24; Leviticus 10:1-3
Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the people. And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): This solemn story of sin and punishment is connected with the preceding chapter by a simple “and.” Probably, therefore, Nadab and Abihu “offered strange fire,” immediately after the fire from Jehovah had consumed the appointed sacrifice. Their sin was aggravated by the time of its being committed. But a week had passed since the consecration of their father and themselves as priests. The first sacrifices had just been offered, and here, in the very blossoming time, came a vile canker.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): How ‘quickly’ Nadab and Abihu did that which the Lord “commanded them not” after the priesthood was instituted!
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: If such license in setting aside the prescriptions of the newly established sacrificial order asserted itself then, to what lengths might it not run when the first impression of sanctity and of God’s commandment had been worn by time and custom? The sin was further aggravated by the sinners being priests, who were doubly obliged to punctilious adherence to the instituted ritual.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): By their example, they encouraged the people to disregard the laws that had been promulged; and God, by executing judgment on the offenders, showed the whole nation—yea, the whole world also, that “He will by no means clear the guilty.”
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Since He was not glorified by them before the people in the way of their duty, He would glorify Himself in their punishment.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): But what was their sin?
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Nadab and Abihu appear to have entered into the Presence of God wrongfully. They had probably been drinking, for there was a command given afterwards, Leviticus 10:9, that no priest should drink wine or strong drink when he went into the House of the Lord.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: It was the fire which was wrong. Plainly, the narrative points to the essence of the crime in calling it “fire which He had not commanded.”
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): By His command, only fire from the altar should have been offered which originally came down from heaven.
JOHN GILL: This fire was not that which came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, as at the end of the preceding chapter, but common fire, and therefore called strange.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: What was their sin in thus offering it?
MATTHEW HENRY: The priests were to burn incense only when it was their lot, Luke 1:9, and, at this time, it was not theirs.
CHARLES SIMEON: It would seem that they were elated with the distinction conferred upon them, and impatient to display the high privileges they enjoyed. Hence, without waiting for the proper season of burning incense, or considering in what manner God had commanded it to be done, they both together took their censers—though only one was ever so to officiate at a time, and put common fire upon them, and went in to burn incense before the Lord.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: So this was their crime, that they were tampering with the appointed order which but a week before they had been consecrated to conserve and administer; that they were thus thrusting in self-will and personal caprice, as of equal authority with the divine commandment.
THOMAS GOODWIN: It was a transgression in bringing in, or continuing to use, such human inventions in worship as God had not commanded, and justifying such to be warrantable.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “This is it that the Lord spake.” Where? and when?
MATTHEW HENRY: Where did God speak this? We do not find the very words; but to this purpose He had said, “Let the priests who come near to the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them,” Exodus 19:22. Indeed the whole scope and tenor of His law spoke this, that being a holy God, and a sovereign Lord, He must always be worshiped with holiness and reverence, and exactly according to His own appointment; and if any jest with Him, it is at their peril. Much had been said to this purpose, as in Exodus 29:43,44; Exodus 34:14; Leviticus 8:35. What was it that God spoke? It was this: “I will be sanctified in those that come nigh me—whoever they are, and, before all the people I will be glorified.”
A. W. PINK: Now, have these unspeakably solemn incidents no message for us today?
MATTHEW HENRY: Whenever we worship God, we come nigh unto Him as spiritual priests. This consideration ought to make us very reverent and serious in all acts of devotion, when we approach God and present ourselves before Him. It concerns us all, when we come nigh to God, to sanctify Him, that is, to give Him the praise of His holiness, to perform every religious exercise as those who believe that the God with whom we have to do is a holy God, a God of spotless purity and transcendent perfection, Isaiah 8:13. When we sanctify God we glorify Him, for His holiness is His glory; and, when we sanctify Him in our solemn assemblies, we glorify Him before all the people, confessing our own belief of His glory and desiring that others also may be affected with it.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): A learned writer explains “that Moses gives to the fire, of which the two sons of Aaron made use, the direct name of fire without any qualification; not calling it strange fire till after he had said that they put incense thereon: so that, considering the mode of expression he uses, it seems as if the fire which Nadab and Abihu employed was not in itself a strange fire, and only became such when they had cast the incense upon it.”
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Nothing could be permitted to ascend from the priestly censer but the pure fire, kindled from off the altar of God, and fed by the “pure incense beaten small,” Leviticus 16:12.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): What is it to offer strange fire before the LORD, but to offer anything of our own, and not with an eye to Jesus, when we come before the LORD? In Exodus 30:9, mention is made of the prohibition of “strange incense” being offered before the LORD. And as incense is generally understood to have reference to the merits of Christ, why may not the sacred fire be supposed to have reference also to the person or oblation of the Lord Jesus?
JOHN GILL: “Strange fire” may be an emblem of dissembled love, such as when a man performs religious duties, prays to God, or praises Him without any cordial affection to Him, or obeys commands not from love, but selfish views; or of an ignorant, false, and misguided zeal, a zeal not according to knowledge, superstitious and hypocritical; or of false and strange doctrines, such as are not of God, nor agree with the voice of Christ, and are foreign to the Scriptures; or of human ordinances, and the inventions of men.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): How greatly God abominates all the sins whereby the purity of religion is corrupted.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: Very much of that which passes among men for the worship of God is but “strange fire” after all…The time, however, is rapidly approaching when the strange fire will be quenched for ever, when the throne of God shall no longer be insulted by clouds of impure incense ascending from unpurged worshippers; when all that is spurious shall be abolished.
