Week 5 Exodus 33-Leviticus 13
Reading Leviticus 1-9 is like standing on a moving walkway, humming a lullaby as I move along in a state of low-energy, non-urgent mental locomotion. Then I lurch off the walkway as I bump into Nadab & Abihu.
The two priests had just received all of the Directions for Priests in chapter 8. But they decided to modify the rules. Miraculous fire had already come from the Lord to burn the sacrificial offering, and now more miraculous fire came from the Lord to incinerate the brothers.
I’ve already read a couple of other cases in the bible where a person commits an offence and is punished, and sometimes I have trouble fitting the two together.
I look at the crime and think: this is what I’d do.
Then the bible does something different, maybe quite a bit different.
So then I’m left asking: who’s right? The bible says something. I don’t much like it. So who gets the deciding vote when it comes to my bible likes and dislikes?
In the case of Nadab and Abihu I’m personally inclined to think that what they did was not a capital offense. But then in fact they did die for what they’d done, so it actually was a capital crime.
Which means the Lord was right.
Which means I don’t necessarily like what that means for me.
Notes: the story of Nadab & Abihu is in Leviticus 10 (and see the run-up in 9:22-24).