And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
Fire from the Lord ... devoured them - rather, killed them; for it appears (Leviticus 10:5) that neither their bodies nor their robes were consumed. The expression, "from the Lord," indicates that this fire issued from the most holy place; and in the destruction of these two young priests, by the infliction of an awful judgment, the wisdom of God observed the same course, in repressing the first instance of contempt for sacred things, as He did at the commencement of the Christian dispensation (Acts 5:1-11).