Leviticus 10 · a question people ask
What was wrong with the fire Nadab and Abihu offered?
The text gives one reason: it was fire "which he had not commanded them" (10:1). Then it gives the LORD's words, "I will show myself holy to those who come near me" (10:3). Later passages say the same thing in other words: they died "when they offered strange fire before the LORD" (Numbers 3:4), and "when they came near before the LORD, and died" (Leviticus 16:1). Christians agree on all of this. They read the details in more than one way.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Fire from the wrong place
Where later passages say where a censer's fire comes from, it is the altar. On the Day of Atonement Aaron takes "a censer full of coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD" (Leviticus 16:12). When a plague broke out, Moses told Aaron, "Take your censer, put fire from the altar in it, lay incense on it" (Numbers 16:46). On this reading the fire itself was what the LORD had not commanded.
Leviticus 16:12 · Numbers 16:46
Coming near in a way not given to them
The daily incense was given to Aaron: "Aaron shall burn incense of sweet spices on it every morning" (Exodus 30:7), and "You shall offer no strange incense on it" (Exodus 30:9). Leviticus 16 opens "after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came near before the LORD, and died" (Leviticus 16:1), and tells Aaron "not to come at just any time into the Most Holy Place" (Leviticus 16:2). On this reading the wrong was coming near when and how the LORD had not said.
Exodus 30:7-9 · Leviticus 16:1-2
Wine
The first words the LORD speaks to Aaron after their death are, "You and your sons are not to drink wine or strong drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die" (10:9). Some read the placing of this command, straight after their death, as pointing to what went wrong that day.
Leviticus 10:8-9
The verses
“Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. Fire came out from before the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke of, saying, ‘I will show myself holy to those who come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” Aaron held his peace.”
“Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest’s office in the presence of Aaron their father.”
“The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came near before the LORD, and died;”