Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering?
Consideration for neglected duty
Part of this goat being a sin offering, should have been eaten--I mean the shoulder and breast allotted to the priest--but it was all burned contrary to the law, for which Moses was justly offended, having seen so lately God’s wrath upon the other fault. The answer of Aaron you have in Leviticus 10:19, in effect and sense as if he should have said, “I confess and acknowledge the ordinance of God is to be kept, and we are to eat with joy of the parts allotted unto us of the sacrifice for sin; the blood was not brought into the Tabernacle of the testimony. But how could I eat with joy in so heavy and woful a case of my children? Compelled, therefore, with the greatness of my grief, I did what I did,” &c. At which answer, saith our chapter, Moses was content, so bearing with his infirmity, considering his great sorrow, but not leaving an example to forgive them that maliciously transgress the commandment of God. And as Moses is said to have stayed his anger, so you see the Lord Himself did, not punishing again this fault. It layeth open unto us the great kindness of our gracious God, of whom the psalm saith, “He is full of compassion and mercy, long suffering and of great goodness. He will not always be chiding, neither keepeth He His anger for ever. He dealeth not with us after our sins, neither rewardeth us according to our wickedness,” &c. Secondly, you may see here how these ceremonial laws gave place to necessity, as David also in necessity did eat the shewbread, which was otherwise unlawful for him to do; and Hezekiah admitted to the Passover those that were not cleansed. But for moral laws there is no dispensation for corporal necessity, but a constant course must be held in obeying them. For it is not necessary that I should live; but it is ever necessary that I should live righteously. Lastly, in that Moses admitted a reasonable excuse, we may learn to abhor pride and to do the like; pride, I say, which scorneth to hear what may be said against the conceit we have once harboured. A modest man or woman doth not thus; but even for his servant or his maid holy Job had an ear, and did not despise their judgment, their complaint, or grief, when they thought themselves evil entreated by him. The example of God Himself is instead of a thousand, who both heard and accepted of Abimelech his excuse for taking away Abraham’s wife, “I know,” saith He, “that thou didst it even with an upright mind, and therefore I kept thee also that thou shouldest not sin against Me,” &c. Shall the Lord be thus sweet, and we so dogged, so churlish, so stern and sour, that no excuse may serve for a thing done amiss if once we have taken notice of it? Beware, beware, and remember your own frailty well. A stubborn frowardness hath hurt many, sweet gentleness and courtesy never any; but though wicked men were unthankful, yet our gracious God was pleased. (Bp. Babington.)
Such things have befallen me.
The afflictions which befall the servants of God
I. That sore afflictions sometimes befall the servants of God.
1. The death of two sons by one stroke.
2. The distressing character of their death.
3. The prohibition of any expression of grief.
II. That under the pressure of sore afflictions the servants of God are required to attend to religious duties.
1. The obligatoriness of such duties is not annulled by trial. Trust in God, and prayer and praise to him, are binding in sickness as in health, in sorrow as m joy. So are all religious duties.
2. The need of the help which attention to such duties affords is not diminished by trial, but rather increased.
III. That under the pressure of sore afflictions the mind and heart of the servants of God often seem unequal to a proper discharge of religious duties. On the day when this calamity befell them, Aaron and his surviving sons did not accurately discharge their sacred duties. It was expressly commanded that the flesh of those sin offerings, the blood of which was not carried into the Tabernacle of the congregation, should be eaten by the officiating priests (Leviticus 6:24-30). Instead of doing this, Aaron and his sons burnt the flesh of the sinoffering (Leviticus 10:16-18). The error may be viewed as--
1. An oversight caused by the things which had befallen them. In great griefs the heart seems dead to every feeling but the predominant one, and the mind seems incapable of sustained attention to anything except what is related to its griefs. Meditation upon the holy Scriptures, prayer, spiritual aspirations, communion with God--these seem impossible to the sorrow-stricken soul. Needing them so urgently, yet the soul seems unable properly to attend to them.
2. Intentional because of felt unfitness to eat of the “most holy” flesh. This seems to receive most support from the words following the text: “Such things have befallen me, and if I had eaten the sin-offering to-day, should it have been accepted in the sight of the Lord?” The bereaved father seems to have been not only sorrowful, but deeply awed and humbled by the things which had befallen him, and to have felt that if he had eaten the “most holy” flesh in such a frame of mind it would not have been acceptable to God. His case reminds us of some who absent themselves from the sacrament of the Lord’s supper because of a sincere feeling of unworthiness. But let such persons remember that Aaron’s sense of unworthiness did not disqualify him for eating the flesh of the sin-offering; he rather erred in not doing so.
IV. That when the mind and heart of the suffering servants of god seem thus unfitted for religious duties, God does not account such unfitness as sin. When Moses heard the apology of Aaron “he was content”; and we are warranted in regarding his “content” as an evidence that God also was satisfied with the reason assigned by the high priest for his deviation from the line of duty. Surely the Lord knew the intense anguish which His servant was suffering, and regarded him with deepest, tenderest pity. “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Here is consolation for the sorrow-stricken soul. If in the day of your sore afflictions you seem to have no heart for worship, your efforts to pray end in what seems to you to be utter failure, and religious thought and emotion seem to have entirely departed from you, remember the touching words of Aaron in his great calamity, “Such things have befallen me”; remember also those other words, “And when Moses heard that, he was content.” (W. Jones.)
The vicissitudes of life
Observe here again with yourself the strange and admirable change of these worldly matters in the turn, as we say, of a hand. For but yesterday, as it were, Aaron and these sons of his had a famous and glorious consecration into the greatest and highest dignity upon earth, nothing under the sun being more glorious than that priesthood in those days. And how may you think his heart rejoiced to see, not only himself, but his children (which parents often love more than themselves), so blessed and honoured? But, O change! how sudden and fearful! O fickle, fading comfort, that man taketh hold of in this world, whatsoever it be, if worldly! These sons so lately exalted and honoured to their old father’s sweet and great joy, now lie destroyed before his face, to his extreme and twitching torment. And how? Not by any ordinary and accustomed death, but by fire from heaven, a sore and dreadful judgment. For what also? Even for breach of commanded duty by the Lord, all which doubled and trebled the father’s sorrow. As it did in David when his son Absalom died not a usual death, and in rebellion and disobedience against his king and father. You remember his passion then uttered: “0 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom; would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son my son.” He considered the cause wherein he died, and the manner how he died; to a father so kind as David was, both of them full of woe and sorrow. Let never, therefore, any prosperity in this world puff us; for we little know what to-morrow may bring with it. The glass that glittereth most is soonest broken; the rankest corn is soonest laid; and the fullest bough with pleasant fruit is soonest slit, having more eyes upon it, and more stones east at it, than all the other boughs of the tree. Pleasant wine maketh wise men fools, and fools often stark mad. Milo’s strong arm overthrew him, and Caesar his ambition. The one trusted too much to nature, and the other to fortune. As a spider’s web, so is a man’s greatness in this world soon wiped away with a little whisk. (Bp. Babington.)
When Moses heard that, he was content.--
A contented law
Some explanations carry their own conviction. We know the voice of honesty when we hear it; there is a frankness about it that can hardly be mistaken. But the meaning lies deeper; there can be no contentment in the presence of violated law. Where a law is violated wantonly, nature can have no rest; she says, “I cannot sleep to-night.” Thank God she cannot! When she can forget her Maker, the end will have come in darkness, and there will in very deed, in spirit and effect, be no more any God. Law must be satisfied in one of two ways. Law can rest upon the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying, “Judgment has been inflicted, righteousness has been vindicated, and the seal of condemnation has been attached to the testimony of evil”; and mighty, imperial, inexorable law sits on the desolated cities--“content.” That is not the way in which the Lord would bring about His own contentment; still, there is the law: fall upon this stone and be broken, or the stone will fall upon you and you will be ground to powder. The gospel is a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. God would have law obeyed: all His ordinances carried out in simple obedience, every statute turned into conduct, every appointment represented in obedience and praise. Then the universe, faithful to her Creator, the stars never disloyal to their Creator-King--the whole creation will say--“Content.” (J. Parker, D. D.).