Why have ye not eaten the sin-offering in a holy place? for it is most holy, and he has given it to you that ye might bear the iniquity of the assembly, to make atonement for them before Jehovah.
Two priests had just fallen under God's judgment for offering strange fire, and now Moses finds the goat of the sin offering burned instead of eaten. His question to Eleazar and Ithamar rests on one phrase: God gave them that offering so they might bear the iniquity of the people.
There were two kinds of sin offering, and they were not handled the same way. Where the blood went decided what happened to the body:
Sometimes the blood of the victim was brought into the holy place, or into the most holy place. That had to do with the standing of the people before God. In that case the priests did not eat the sin offering, and its body was burned outside the camp. But of the ordinary sin offering the priests did eat. In doing so they entered into the sin of the people before God. They confessed before God a sin that was not their own.
The verse says the offering "has been given" to the priests. That makes it a provision, not just a duty — though few are in a state to take it up:
Here is food on the table the Lord has spread for those who can eat it. It is for those who can take up the sins of others before the Lord, feeling and confessing them as if they were their own. To feed on this divine provision calls for self-judgment, spiritual power and divine intelligence. Few show that measure before God. This food sustains a priestly service that is of the greatest value to the people of God, and that serves the Lord in work needed for the well-being of His church.
"Bear the iniquity" sounds like the language of the cross, so commentators draw a line. What the priests did was real, but it was not atonement:
In a certain sense there is a priestly way in which we have to bear the sins and sorrows of our brothers and sisters. Not, of course, as to atonement. That was Christ's alone, and the blood carried inside was Christ's alone. But there is still a true sense in which we have to bear them. And in this, I believe above everything else, we fail.
Moses does not only ask why they failed to eat. He also names where they should have eaten. The place shows how near to God this service has to be done:
This goes far beyond the kindest feeling. It comes from a deep sense of what is due to God, and from feeling as if we ourselves had offended. This is to bear the iniquity of the assembly: caring for the things that are Christ's, not for the things of men who would excuse the sin and smooth it over. So it was to be eaten in the holy place, not just in a clean place like the peace offering. Propitiation had its unique moment. But priestly grace also has its own place and season, in nearness to God.
The practical opposite of eating the sin offering is not open sin. It is the habit of standing back from a brother's failure and assessing it:
When a brother has sinned, our tendency is to sit in judgment on him. We take the place of a severe critic. We look on his sin as something we have nothing whatever to do with. This is a sad failure in our priestly duties. It is refusing to eat the sin offering in the most holy place. It is a most precious fruit of grace to identify yourself with a brother who has gone wrong, so fully that you make his sin your own and bear it in spirit before God.
The chapter records two failures, and God does not treat them alike:
Leviticus 10 opens with positive sin and closes with negative failure. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire; Eleazar and Ithamar were unable to eat the sin offering. The first was met by divine judgment, the second by divine forbearance. There could be no allowance for strange fire — it was flatly defying God's plain commandment. Deliberately rejecting a plain command is one thing. Simply not being able to rise to the height of a divine privilege is another. The difference is obvious. The first is open dishonour done to God. The second is the forfeiting of one's own blessing. Neither should happen, but the difference between the two is easy to trace.
- Given — God handed the sin offering to the priests as their portion, food spread on His table.
- Eaten — eating meant taking another's sin inward and owning it before God, confessing a sin that was not their own.
- Borne — the priests really did bear iniquity, but not as atonement. That belonged to Christ alone.
- Near — the meal belonged in the holy place, so this service cannot be done at a distance from God.
- Forfeited — failing to eat was not defiance like strange fire, and God bore with it. But it cost the priests their own blessing.
Lo, its blood was not brought in within the sanctuary ye should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.
Moses has just found the goat of the sin offering burned instead of eaten. His anger has a reason: the blood never went into the sanctuary, so the priests were bound to eat the flesh there — and why God required that eating is the real question.
Moses is not inventing a new demand. There were two ways to handle a sin offering. Which one applied depended on where the blood had gone.
The rule for the sin offering was this. If the blood went inside, to be sprinkled before the Lord, the body went outside the camp to be burned. But in the sin offering for offences, the priest was to eat it, and in this the "sons of Aaron" had a share.
Blood taken inside touched the whole nation's place before God. The ordinary offering touched one particular offence, and there the priest had work to do.
When the blood of a victim went into the holy place, or into the holiest place, it had to do with the standing of the people before God. Then the priests did not eat the sin offering; its body was burned outside the camp. But in the ordinary sin offering, the priests ate it, entering into the sin of the people before God, confessing before God sin that was not their own.
Eating was never a meal only. It was a way of taking something into yourself — here, the sin of someone else.
The eating means the same here as it does elsewhere. It is entering into what makes atonement for God, and so of necessity into the sin itself as before Him… When Daniel confessed his sin and the sin of his people, he was surely eating the sin offering. Just such identification of ourselves with the sins of God's saints is a great need for all of us.
Moses names the place where they had to eat it. Some holy food could be eaten in any clean place; this could not.
This goes far beyond the kindest feeling. It carries a deep sense of what is due to God, and a sense that we ourselves had offended. This is to bear the iniquity of the assembly, caring for the things that are Christ's, not for the things of men who would smooth sin over and excuse it. So it was to be eaten, not in a clean place only like the peace offering, but in the holy place.
Eleazar and Ithamar did not defy God as their brothers had. They simply disposed of the offering instead of absorbing it — and that choice is an easy one to repeat.
It is easier to burn the sin offering than to eat it, since the eating needs a moral state we do not always have. We may have righteous indignation against evil, and deal with it in a harsh and judicial way; but God would have us deal with it as if it were our own.
God gave the offering to the priests to bear the iniquity of the congregation. So what does bearing another person's sin look like in practice?
Suppose I were really walking in the power of the place in which I am set. If I see sin in my brother, and go to pray for him, I find him identified with Christ as represented to the world. The garment of Christ is soiled, the honour of Christ is affected, the joy of Christ is hindered… Well, now, it is to bear the misery and the sorrow of all this, as though I had been in the sin myself. Love gets into the place of the sinner, and his sin becomes the occasion of the outgoings of the heart in intercession to God.
One writer takes this all the way to the cross.
This is what the Lord Jesus did in the fullest way, even taking that guilt upon His own shoulders in going to the cross. Every believer should have this same attitude. It will make us true intercessors rather than critics.
The chapter records two failures, and God does not treat them alike.
Leviticus 10 opens with positive sin, and closes with negative failure. Nadab and Abihu offered "strange fire"; and Eleazar and Ithamar were unable to eat the sin offering. God met the first with judgement; the second He met with forbearance… There is a wide difference between a deliberate rejection of a plain command, and mere inability to rise to the height of a divine privilege.
- Blood decides. Blood carried inside meant the body went outside the camp to burn. Blood not carried in meant the priests must eat the flesh in the holy place.
- Eating is entering. To eat the sin offering was to enter into the sin itself before God — confessing, as Daniel did, sin that was not your own.
- Place matters. Not just any clean place, but the sanctuary — we carry the failure of others near to God instead of excusing it among men.
- Burning is the shortcut. Harsh, judicial handling of evil costs us nothing. Treating the sin as our own needs a moral state we may not have.
- Weakness is met with patience. Deliberate rejection of a plain command brought judgement. Falling short of a privilege brought forbearance.