Tag Archives: Leviticus 10-12

February 4, 2024 Bible Study — Aaron Mourns the Loss of His Sons

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 10-12.

The timing here of when two of Aaron’s sons died for using unconsecrated fire in their censers is unclear.  However, as I read this, it happened on the first day after the ordination of Aaron and all of his sons was complete.  Moses commanded Aaron and his remaining sons not to openly mourn for the two who had died.  However, Moses encouraged all of the rest of the Israelites to mourn for the loss of two of Aaron’s sons.   We do not know why the two men did what they did, but the passage tells us that they used “unauthorized fire” to burn the incense resulting in fire coming out from the presence of the Lord and killing them.  So, if nothing else, their failure was an unwillingness to wait for instructions from the Lord.  I would add that it seems to me that perhaps their failure was an attempt to conduct worship according to their own ideas of what it should be rather than follow God’s instructions.  God had not yet given instructions on how to use the incense in His worship.  There is one more point to be made.  Moses was mad at Aaron’s two remaining sons because they burned up the priestly portion of the sin offering rather than eating it.  However, he was mollified when Aaron pointed out that he and his sons were in mourning for the death of his other two sons that very day.  So, while the priests were not allowed to visibly mourn while carrying out their duties, they were allowed to mourn the loss of family.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

February 4, 2023 Bible Study — The Importance Of Taking God Seriously

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 10-12.

Aaron’s sons had just seen the glory of the Lord appear in the Temple and fire come out from it to consume the burnt offering and other offering pieces on the altar.  Yet, two of them used fire from other sources to burn incense in their censers, contrary to what God’s command for the incense to be burned in the censer using coals taken from the altar.  Now, what makes this interesting to me is that God’s command regarding the fire for incense burning was not recorded in any of the passages we have read so far this year.  One explanation for the death of Aaron’s two sons here is that they should not have burned incense in the censers until they had proper instructions from God.  The second is that the command had been previously given by God (perhaps along with the instructions for the incense altar), but not placed in the account being given by those composing this for one reason or another.  Either of these explanations have useful lessons we can learn from them.  The first one teaches us not to get out ahead of God’s instructions in our desire to worship and serve Him.  The second one teaches us that we should take God’s commands seriously, that the consequences for failing to do so can be deadly.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

February 4, 2022 Bible Study –To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Required

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 10-12.

To my knowledge I have never come across anyone referencing the fact that Nadab and Abihu were among those who went up Mt Sinai with Moses, Aaron, and the 70 elders.  So, they had seen God, yet here they are using fire in their censers other than that which God commanded.  I believe that the honor they had received at Mt Sinai played a role in their deaths here.  Jesus said. “To whom much is given, much is required.”  These two men (I was going to write “young men”, but realized that was unlikely to be true, considering that Moses was in his 80s by this point and Aaron was Moses’ older brother) had been given a lot, both in honor and in knowledge.  They took a “short cut” when they knew the correct way, and they did this on their very first time as priests.  In the same way, those of us who have been given much knowledge about how God wants us to live (in my case, by the example of my parents’ faith and that of the many other great men and women God has put in my life over the years, and by my regular reading of the Bible) will be held to a higher standard of behavior than those who have rarely, or never, been exposed to God’s Word.  I probably deserve to suffer the same fate as these two of Aaron’s sons.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

February 4, 2021 Bible Study Sometimes It’s OK To Make Exceptions

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Leviticus 10-12.

After the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Moses was angry with Aaron’s two remaining sons for not following eating the goat of the sin offering as the rules for the sin offering instructed them to do (Aaron was also guilty of this, but Moses appears to have confronted his sons, not Aaron).  Aaron responded that the loss of two of his sons justified he and his remaining sons not celebrating the sin offering by eating the portions intended for them.  Moses found this answer satisfactory.  This shows us that we need to make allowances for special circumstances.

 

 

February 4, 2020 Bible Study — The Value of Strict Dietary Rules

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

Yesterday I wrote that a process of dedication like the ordination which Aaron and his sons went through can make people more determined to do things the right way.  Today’s passage starts off by demonstrating that it does not always do so.  Despite going through the somber, serious process of ordination decided that they could take a shortcut to the proper procedures.  So, a dedication/ordination service does not in and of itself prepare us to do the Lord’s work.  We still need to put in effort to get things right.

The passage goes on to describe what animals the Israelites were allowed to eat.  While Christians do not follow these dietary laws, we have recently been reminded why it is a bad idea to eat anything you can lay your hands upon by the outbreak of the coranavirus from Wuhan, China.  While there are other theories about the origins of this infectious agent, currently the most likely theory is that it jumped from one of the animal species sold for food in the markets of Wuhan, markets which are known for selling as food animals no one outside of Asia, and few outside of China, would consider eating.  A similar thing happened in 2002 from a different part of China.  The rules laid out in this passage provide an easy to remember set of rules which limit your diet to things which have little to no risk of making you sick. 

February 4, 2019 Bible Study — Waiting For Instructions From God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

Two of Aaron’s sons died because they burned incense using the incorrect fire source. It is not clear how they were supposed to know the correct way to burn the incense, but perhaps that is the point. Perhaps their sin was that they tried to burn the incense without knowing the correct way to do so. We know of other incidents where people died from doing something they did not know was dangerous. There are two ways we can look at this, and both lead to the same conclusion. First, the materialistic way: they were working with fire and with a volatile mixture. Caution was in order to make sure that the incense mixture did not explode. They did not exercise such caution. Second, the spiritual way: they were working in an extremely holy environment. They should have waited for Moses to give them God’s instructions to be sure that they were doing it in the appropriately holy manner. In either case, they died because they did not wait for proper instruction. They did not know what they did not know because they were foolish. A wise person would have realized that what they were about to do was potentially dangerous and would have made sure they knew the correct way to do it.

February 4, 2018 Bible Study — Following God’s Rules, Even When We Do Not Understand Why

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

    Today’s passage begins with the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons. God struck them down because they used the wrong kind of fire to burn incense before Him. This is where reading through the Bible multiple times causes you to realize that God’s commands are not necessarily recorded here in the chronological order in which they were delivered, because we have not yet come to the method by which God commanded the incense to be burned in incense burners. That comes in Leviticus 16. This account occurs here immediately after the ordination of Aaron and his sons in order to communicate to us the solemness and seriousness of the duties of the priesthood. While the passage does not explicitly state that this occurred soon after the ordination, several aspects of the account suggest that it did indeed follow almost immediately. Moses was upset because Aaron’s remaining sons did not eat the priestly portion of the sin offering, thinking that they had misunderstood God’s instructions concerning it being their share. However, when Aaron pointed out that he and his sons had not done so because of the tragedy which had befallen them that day, Moses was pleased with that answer. From this we can conclude that Aaron and his sons had not been conducting the sacrifices long enough to demonstrate that they knew the proper procedures. In other words, this probably happened immediately after their ordination, or at most a few days later.

    I debated writing about the animals which could, and could not, be eaten, but after some thought I decided to make a few comments here. The animals on the unclean list were not just there because of disease issues from improperly storing or preparing the meat. Some of them were on the list because they were potential hosts for diseases which could be transmitted by contact. Another point worth making is that the way animals were categorized does not necessarily mean that everything that falls into the “unclean” category is a health hazard. Rather it is the other way around, everything that falls into the “clean” category is not a health hazard (mad cow disease might seem to show that to be not entirely true, but I would say that is because of feeding practices which are elsewhere in these laws forbidden).

February 4, 2017 Bible Study — Serving The Lord, Even When We Suffer Loss

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

    Today’s passage begins with the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons, which must have happened shortly after their ordination because Moses had not yet finished giving the instructions regarding the priestly share of offerings. The part of this which strikes me the most is that Aaron and his two remaining sons were forbidden from showing their grief in public. Moses was even angry with them for not eating their share of the goat sin offering. They had a job to do as the intercessors between the people and God. They could not stop even though they had lost loved ones. In the same way, each one of us has a mission from God which we must perform even when we suffer loss. I want to be careful here, this does not mean that a pastor cannot take a day off when a loved one dies. It means that each and every one of us must continue to serve God and do His will, even when we lose a loved one or suffer some other loss.

February 4, 2016 Bible Study — Learning To Fear God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

DSCN0153

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

    Two of Aaron’s sons were struck down for using the wrong fire in their incense burners. This story is a reminder of the importance of fearing God. Aaron’s sons figured that because no person would notice what they did, it did not matter. However, what they overlooked was that the command they violated was not a human command. Rather it was a command from God. God always notices. We need to have the sort of fear of God which this incident surely inspired in those who witnessed it. This passage reminds us to fear God. The best summation of what I believe about fear of God is summed up by this line from the song “Amazing Grace”:

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved.

We cannot truly comprehend how great God’s grace is if we have not first come to understand how fearful God truly is.