What a way to start! On the first day, in the worst way, two of Aaron’s sons defy God and die.
Something very miraculous but very horrible had just occurred. Nadab and Abihu played with fire, so to speak, taking “profane fire” (Lev 10:1) into God’s presence. In response, “fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (v 2). Like Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace, the priests’ clothes were untouched. How do we know? Aaron’s cousins, Mishael and Elzaphan, were instructed to carry them “by their tunics out of the camp” (v 5). The word profane was the word for a foreigner, someone who didn’t belong. When God commands something, He doesn’t want us to introduce our own foreign ideas. What impertinence! What blasphemy! This was to be an example to the nation that God is to be taken very seriously. Aaron and the family of priests were told: “Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes” (v 6) as outward signs of mourning, for fear they might give the impression that they disagreed with God’s judgment. However, the nation could “bewail the burning” (v 6). What was the main point? “That you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (v 10). In fact, the next chapters (11-15) lay out—sometimes in awkward detail—this distinction. God means what God says. It might seem that God’s holiness means He is not also gracious, but that would be a wrong conclusion. The very next story shows Eleazar and Ithamar, two other sons of Aaron, making a mistake about a goat offering. The apology was accepted, and so the difference is made clear between the willful rebellion of the first story and the inadvertent mistake of the second. “There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Ps 130:4), not taken for granted!