I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

Two of Aaron’s sons died because they burned incense using the incorrect fire source. It is not clear how they were supposed to know the correct way to burn the incense, but perhaps that is the point. Perhaps their sin was that they tried to burn the incense without knowing the correct way to do so. We know of other incidents where people died from doing something they did not know was dangerous. There are two ways we can look at this, and both lead to the same conclusion. First, the materialistic way: they were working with fire and with a volatile mixture. Caution was in order to make sure that the incense mixture did not explode. They did not exercise such caution. Second, the spiritual way: they were working in an extremely holy environment. They should have waited for Moses to give them God’s instructions to be sure that they were doing it in the appropriately holy manner. In either case, they died because they did not wait for proper instruction. They did not know what they did not know because they were foolish. A wise person would have realized that what they were about to do was potentially dangerous and would have made sure they knew the correct way to do it.