Leviticus 10:12

10:12-20 Afflictions should rather quicken us to our duty, than take us from it. But our unfitness for duty, when it is natural and not sinful, will have great allowances made for it; God will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Let us profit by the solemn warning this history conveys. When professing worshippers come with zeal without knowledge, carnal affections, earthly, light, vain, trifling thoughts, the devices of will-worship, instead of the offering of soul and spirit; then the incense is kindled by a flame which never came down from heaven, which the Spirit of a holy God never sent within their hearts.

Verses 12-20. - Moses takes care that the remaining part of the ritual of the day shall be carried out in spite of the terrible interruption that has occurred. Under his instructions, Aaron and Eleazar and Ithamar eat the remainder of the meat offering ( Leviticus 9:17 ), in the court of the tabernacle, and reserve the wave breast and heave shoulder to eat in a clean place , that is, not necessarily within the court; but he finds that the sin offerings ( Leviticus 9:15 ), which ought to be eaten by the priests, had been burnt. The rule was that, when the blood was presented in the tabernacle, the flesh was burned; when it was not, the flesh was eaten by the priests. In the present case, the blood had not been brought within the holy place, and yet the flesh had been burned instead of being eaten. Moses was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, and demanded an explanation. Aaron's plea of defense was twofold. 1. His sons had fulfilled aright the ritual of their own sin offering and burnt offering, that is, the offerings made for the priests, and it had been rather his duty than theirs to see that the ritual of the sin offering of the congregation had been properly carried out. 2. The state of distress in which he was, and the near escape that he had had from ceremonial defilement, and the sense of sin brought home to him by his children's death, had made him unfit and unable to eat the sin offering of the people, as he should have done under other circumstances.

With this plea Moses was content. It was true that the letter of the Law had been broken, but there was a sufficient cause for it (see Hosea 6:6 ; Matthew 12:7 ). It appears from hence that the expiation wrought by the sin offering was not complete until the whole ceremony was accomplished, the last act of which was the eating of the flesh by the priests in one class of sin offering, and the burning the flesh outside the camp in the other. It has been questioned, what is the full meaning of the expression, God hath given it you - the flesh of the sin offering - to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord. Archdeacon Freeman expresses the view of A Lapide, Keil, and many others when he says that, by eating the flesh of the offering, the priests "in a deep mystery neutralized, through the holiness vested in them by their consecration, the sin which the offerer had laid upon the victim and upon them" ('Principles of Divine Service,' part 2).

Leviticus 10:12-14 . Moses spake unto Aaron — Moses, being apprehensive that Aaron, in the confusion of his grief for the loss of his two sons, might forget or omit some part of his duty, here puts him in mind of it, repeating to him the order about eating the remains of the meat or meal-offering, ( Leviticus 6:16-17 ,) and about the shoulder and breast, Leviticus 7:31 . The former of which the priests alone might eat, and that only in the holy place, or court of the tabernacle. The other might be eaten in any clean place, that is, in any of their dwellings, or in any place in the camp which was decent, and kept clean from all ceremonial defilement; and where the women as well as the men might come; for the daughters of the priests might eat these as well as their sons, if they were maids, or widows, or divorced, Leviticus 2:11-13 .

Moses repeateth and re-enforceth the former command, partly lest their great loss and grief should cause them to forget or neglect their meat prescribed them by God, which abstinence would have been both a signification of their sorrow, which God had forbidden them, and a new transgression of a Divine precept; and partly to encourage them to go on in their holy services, and not to be dejected for the late severity, as if God would no more accept them or their sacrifices.

The argument is, that as such meals were appointed in honor of Yahweh Himself, they ought to be conducted with due reverence and discretion. Leviticus 10:12 Beside the altar - What is called "the holy place" in Leviticus 10:13, Leviticus 10:17 : it should be rather, a holy place, any part of the holy precinct, as distinguished from a merely "clean place" Leviticus 10:14, either within or without the court of the tabernacle.

(12) And Moses spake unto Aaron. —This communication, which refers to the sacrifices offered on the eighth day, or the day after the consecration was finished, Moses made to Aaron and his two surviving sons immediately after the calamity that had befallen them. As Aaron lost his two eldest sons in consequence of their having violated the sacrificial regulations, Moses is most anxious to guard him and his two younger sons against transgressing any other part of the ritual connected with the same sacrifices, lest they also should incur a similar punishment. Take the meat offering that remaineth of the offerings.—The meat offering which was offered by the nation the day after the consecration, when the calamity happened (see Leviticus 9:17), and which was not as yet eaten. With the exception of the handful which was burnt on the altar, all belonged to the priests. (See Leviticus 2:1-3; Leviticus 6:14-18.) And eat it without leaven beside the altar.—That is, in the court of the tent of meeting, where the altar of burnt offering stood. (See Leviticus 6:16.) For it is most holy.—Hence it could only be eaten by the male members of the families of the priests within the court of the sanctuary. (See Leviticus 6:18.)