Commentary - Leviticus 10:8-11

Bird's-eye view

We cannot understand this directive from God to Aaron unless we see the smoking ruin in the immediate background. Aaron's two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, have just been consumed by fire from the presence of the Lord. They offered "strange fire," and God's response was swift, holy, and terrifying. The text does not explicitly say they were drunk, but the very next thing God does is institute this permanent rule for the priesthood. The connection is impossible to miss. This is not a bit of arbitrary legislation, tacked on as an afterthought. This is God providing the necessary guardrails for worship, immediately following a catastrophic failure in worship.

The issue is sobriety in the presence of the Holy. God commands his priests, when they come to minister before Him, to be in full possession of their faculties. Why? Because their central task is one of making distinctions, separating the holy from the common, the clean from the unclean. And flowing directly from that, their task is to teach these distinctions to the people of God. A muddled mind cannot make sharp distinctions, and a priest who cannot make sharp distinctions has nothing to teach. This passage, therefore, establishes the foundational requirement for all true ministry: a sober mind dedicated to discerning and declaring the whole counsel of God.

Outline

Commentary

8 Yahweh then spoke to Aaron, saying,

Notice the timing and the audience. God speaks directly to Aaron. This is immediately after his sons have been killed and Moses had to tell Aaron not to mourn outwardly. Aaron is the high priest, the head of the house, and he has just suffered an unimaginable loss. But the work of God does not stop for our personal tragedies. In fact, it is often in the midst of them that God gives his clearest instructions. This is a pastoral moment, but it is a stern one. The lesson from the death of his sons must be learned, and it must be learned now. The standard for the priesthood is being set in stone, right here in the ashes of failure.

9 “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die, it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations,

Here is the central command. It is not a blanket prohibition on alcohol. Scripture is clear that wine is a gift from God that makes glad the heart of man (Ps. 104:15). The issue is not the substance, but the state of mind required for a particular task. When you come into the tent of meeting, when you are on duty before the living God, you are to be absolutely sober. The phrase "wine or strong drink" covers the gamut, from fermented grape juice to more potent distilled spirits. The stakes are as high as they get: "so that you will not die." God is linking this command directly to the fate of Nadab and Abihu. Their sin was a form of liturgical carelessness, a casual approach to the holy things of God. It is highly likely that their judgment was clouded by drink, leading them to offer a fire of their own invention instead of the one God commanded. God's holiness is not something to be trifled with. To approach Him with a mind dulled by alcohol is to risk your life. This is a "perpetual statute." This principle does not expire with the Old Covenant. The need for sober-minded, clear-headed worship is a timeless reality for the people of God.

10 and so as to separate between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean,

Now we get to the positive reason behind the negative command. Why must the priests be sober? Because their fundamental job is to make distinctions. The world, since the fall, is a messy, confused place. The central task of God's covenant people, led by the priests, is to bring God's ordering word to bear on that mess. This starts with the most basic distinction of all: the difference between the holy (that which is set apart for God) and the profane (that which is common). It extends to the distinction between the clean (that which is fit for inclusion in the covenant community) and the unclean (that which is not). A priest who cannot see these lines clearly is worthless. He cannot guard the sanctuary, he cannot lead the people in right worship, and he cannot diagnose the spiritual state of the nation. A mind clouded by wine is in no shape to draw the sharp, bright lines that God's law requires. This is not just about ritual; it is about reality. God is holy, and we are not. And the worship of God requires a clear-headed recognition of that fact at all times.

11 and so as to instruct the sons of Israel in all the statutes which Yahweh has spoken to them through Moses.”

The task of distinction leads directly to the task of instruction. You cannot teach what you do not know. You cannot communicate clearly what is fuzzy in your own mind. The priest was not just a ritual functionary; he was a teacher. The Levites were tasked with teaching the law of God to the people (Deut. 33:10). This is the culmination of the command. Be sober, so you can distinguish, so you can teach. The people of God need to know all the statutes. Not just the easy ones, not just the ones that are culturally acceptable. All of them. And the priests are the designated instruments for that instruction. If the teachers are drunk, whether on wine or on the intoxicating spirits of the age, the people will be left defenseless. They will not know how to live, how to worship, or how to please God. The entire health of the covenant community depends on the faithful execution of this sober duty.

Key Issues

Application

The application for the church today is direct and potent. While we are not under the Levitical code in the same way, the principles here are permanent. The New Testament picks up this theme and applies it to all believers, who are now a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). We are repeatedly called to be sober-minded (1 Thess. 5:6, 8; Titus 2:2; 1 Pet. 1:13, 4:7, 5:8). This is not primarily about abstaining from alcohol, though it certainly includes not being controlled by it. It is about a state of mind, a spiritual alertness, a refusal to be intoxicated by the foolishness of the world.

Our culture is drunk. It is drunk on sentimentality, on rebellion, on self-worship, on every kind of foolishness. It has lost the ability to make the most basic distinctions, between man and woman, good and evil, truth and lies. The church is called to be an island of sobriety in this sea of madness. Pastors and elders, in particular, must be sober (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:7-8). They must be men who can distinguish between the holy and the profane, and who can teach those distinctions to the flock. Fathers have this same priestly duty in their homes.

We are to approach God in worship with our minds engaged, not with a buzz from wine or with a mind numbed by the entertainment ethos of our day. Worship is serious business. It is a meeting with the Holy One of Israel, the consuming fire. To come unprepared, with a casual or clouded mind, is to repeat the sin of Nadab and Abihu. We must be sober, so that we can see the world as it truly is, distinguish between the clean and the unclean, and faithfully teach the statutes of the Lord to the coming generations.