J.J. Blunt's Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences
AN ARGUMENT FOR THE VERACITY OF THE HOLY BIBLE
Introduction
Part One:
The Books of Moses
Part Two:
The Historical Scriptures
Part Three:
The Prophetical Scripture
Part Four:
The Gospels and Acts
Appendix:
The Gospels, Acts
and Josephus

XIV. NADAB, ABIHU AND THE CENSER

I will now follow the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness, on their return to the land from which their fathers had wandered, and which they, or at least their children, were destined to enjoy.

In the tenth chapter of Leviticus we are told that “Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire unto the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.” Now it is natural to ask, how came Nadab and Abihu to be guilty of this careless affront to God, lighting their censers probably from their own hearths, and not from the hallowed fire of the altar, as they were commanded to do? Possibly we cannot guess how it happened—it may be one of those many matters which are of no particular importance to be known, and concerning which we are accordingly left in the dark. Yet, when I read shortly afterwards the following instructions given to Aaron, I am led to suspect that they had their origin in some recent abuse which called for them, though no such origin is expressly assigned to them. I cannot help imagining, that the offence of Nadab and Abihu was at the bottom of the statute. “Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the Tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die—it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean, and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hands of Moses.” Thus far at least is clear, that a grievous and thoughtless insult is offered to God by two of his Priests, for which they are cut off—that without any direct allusion to their case, but still very shortly after it had happened, a law is issued forbidding the Priests the use of wine when about to minister. I conclude, therefore, that there was a relation (though it is not asserted) between the specific offence and the general law; the more so, because the sin against which that law is directed is just of a kind to have produced the rash and inconsiderate act of which Aaron’s sons were guilty. If, therefore, this incidental mention of such a law at such a moment, a moment so likely to suggest the enactment of it, be thought enough to establish the law as a matter of fact, then have we once more ground to stand upon; for the enactment of the law is coupled with the sin of Aaron’s sons; their sin with their punishment; their punishment with a miracle. Nor, it may be added, does the unreserved and faithful record of such a death, suffered for such an offence, afford an inconsiderable argument in favour of the candour and honesty of Moses, who is no respecter of persons, it seems, but when God’s glory is concerned, and the welfare of the people entrusted to him, does not scruple to be the chronicler of the disgrace and destruction even of the children of his own brother.