Nadab And Abihu Died

1 Chronicles 23:30-24:2 – And they were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt offerings were offered to the Lord on Sabbaths, new moons, and feast days, according to the number required of them, regularly before the Lord. Thus they were to keep charge of the tent of meeting and the sanctuary, and to attend the sons of Aaron, their brothers, for the service of the house of the Lord. The divisions of the sons of Aaron were these. The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father and had no children, so Eleazar and Ithamar became the priests.

Numbers 3:4,38 – But Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of Aaron their father…Those who were to camp before the tabernacle on the east, before the tent of meeting toward the sunrise, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, guarding the sanctuary itself, to protect the people of Israel. And any outsider who came near was to be put to death.

Leviticus 10:2 – And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

Application:

• ·         Service in the tabernacle was an act of mercy, a means for the people to come before God. Yet it was marked by strict discipline—it had to be done in God’s way.
• ·         For all time, the deaths of Aaron’s newly consecrated sons serve to warn God’s ministers of the awesome seriousness of their tasks.
• ·         The new community had to be made aware that it existed for God, not vice versa.

All Scripture verses taken from ESV