1. And the sons of Aaron. Now that the elaborate system of sacrificial regulations, capped by the rites of installation, is completed, we are reminded what a dangerous business the cult is by the catastrophe that befalls the two sons of Aaron when they violate cultic procedure. This is one of the two narrative episodes in Leviticus.

put fire in it. Practically, as many modern commentators have observed, they would have filled the fire-pans with glowing coals, not an actual fire. The literal sense of “fire” (ʾesh) is worth preserving because it makes evident the measure-for-measure enactment of divine justice: Nadab and Abihu introduce alien fire to the sacred precinct, and a fire from the LORD comes out to destroy them.

incense upon it. The feminine form of “upon it” in the Hebrew tells us that the incense is put on top of the coals since fire is feminine.

alien fire. The adjective zarah, “alien,” “strange” (as in “stranger”), or “unfit,” indicates in cultic contexts a substance or person not consecrated for entrance or use in the sacred precinct (hence Jacob Milgrom’s translation, “unauthorized”). The consensus of modern interpreters, with precedents in the classical Midrash, is that the fire is “alien” because it has been taken from a profane source—e.g., coals taken from an ordinary oven. Incense has been put on top of the coals, which leads Milgrom to conjecture that this story is a polemic against a practice of burning incense to the astral deities (for which actually there is scant archaeological evidence) in the Assyrian period, probably through Assyrian influence.

2. And fire came out from before the LORD. This is the same phrase used in 9:24 to report the act of divine acceptance by which a supernatural flame consumes the offerings on the altar. The zone of the holy, where the divine presence takes up its headquarters, is intrinsically dangerous and, from a certain point of view, radically ambiguous. When proper procedures are followed—a virtual obsession of these Priestly writers—miraculous signs of God’s favor are manifested. When procedures are violated, God becomes a consuming fire.

3. Through those close to Me. The reference is to the cultic inner circle of the designated priests, with an obvious pun on the verb from the same root involved in “brought forward alien fire.” The meaning of this cryptic one-line poem is not entirely transparent, but the reference to being honored in all the people’s presence lends some support to the view of several medieval Hebrew commentators that the spectacular punishment of Nadab and Abihu (who as sons of Aaron would be “close to” God), evident to all the people, is what is intended. God is “hallowed” by manifesting His power against transgressors.

4. your brothers. The term is used in its frequent extended sense of “kinsmen,” since Mishael and Elzaphan are actually the cousins of Nadab and Abihu.

5. in their tunics. Rashi proposes that the divine fire miraculously killed Nadab and Abihu without damaging their clothes. This interpretation may not be fanciful, for in an ordinary death by fire, the garments would surely have been burned.

6. Your heads you shall not dishevel nor your garments rend. That is, you are not to perform any of the conventional gestures of mourning, for your sons have perished in violating the very trust of the sanctuary that has been given to you and your descendants. Instead, you may allow the people as a whole to take up the burden of mourning (“your brothers, the whole house of Israel, may keen”).

the burning that the LORD inflicted. The Hebrew uses a cognate accusative: “the burning that the LORD has burned.”

9. strong drink. It is not clear whether this term refers here to a specific alcoholic beverage. It is transparently derived from the root sh-k-r, “to intoxicate.”

17. to bear off the guilt of the community. The verb here plays against the “bearing off” of the bodies of Nadab and Abihu.

19. and things of this sort befell me. The obvious reference of this vague phrase is to the sudden deaths of Nadab and Abihu. Aaron cannot bring himself to report that painful event in explicit terms, and so he uses this circumlocution.

Had I eaten an offense offering today, would it have seemed good in the eyes of the LORD? One common understanding of these words is that he is, after all, mourning for his sons, so how could the LORD expect him to eat his fixed portion of the offering, or to eat at all (fasting being a practice of mourning)? Milgrom rejects this possibility because he notes that Aaron has been enjoined not to mourn. He proposes instead that the deaths of the two sons have contaminated the altar, transforming the offense offering into its archaic manifestation in which its “detergent” function was too potent to allow for human consumption. That explanation seems unduly complicated, and it is entirely possible that Aaron has been forbidden to engage in any public gesture of mourning (disheveling one’s hair, tearing one’s garments) but is still permitted this mourner’s act of abstention. Such a reading makes the exchange here between Aaron and Moses more personally poignant: the grieving father asks his own brother whether God could really expect him to constrain himself to ingest meat in this moment of his grief, and Moses concedes that Aaron is right.