4 Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, "Draw near, carry your brothers from before the sanctuary out of the camp."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan Lest Eleazar and Ithamar should carry [1] forth the corpses, Moses commanded these others to anticipate them. It may also have been the case that all were stupified by terror. He forbids the father and brothers to mourn their death, not so much in accordance with the law, whereby all except the high priest were permitted to mourn for their own brother, as to prevent this memorable lesson from being obscured by their grief, since thus was the sanctity of their religion magnificently asserted. Nevertheless, God allowed the dead men to be bewailed by the people, lest the recollection of their punishment should too soon be lost. When he forbids (Aaron and his sons) to go out from the door of the tabernacle, he does not mean so to fix them to that place as to banish them from their own private tents, but he withholds them from all pollution which might have compelled them to desert or interrupt their duty.
1 - "Se polluassent en portant les corps morts de leurs freres;" should pollute themselves by carrying the dead bodies of their brothers. -- Fr. Blunt has a very ingenious conjecture that Mishael and Elzaphan were the very persons "defiled by the dead body of a man," mentioned in Numbers 9:6, 7, and who therefore could not keep the Passover. "The Veracity of the Five Books of Moses." Art. 14. But surely, out of such a large body of persons, there must have been many deaths daily, and consequently others would have been defiled besides Mishael and Elzaphan.
The first cousins of Aaron Exodus 6:22 are selected by Moses to convey the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out of the camp and bury them, probably because they were the nearest relations who were not priests. See Numbers 9:6.
Uzziel the uncle of Aaron - He was brother to Amram the father of Aaron; see Exodus 6:18-22.
And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel, the uncle of Aaron,.... Uzziel was a son of Kohath, a brother of Amram, the father of Aaron, and so Aaron's uncle, as here; he had four sons, two of which are here mentioned as called by Moses; these were first cousins to Aaron, and second to his sons; see Exodus 6:18,
and said unto them, come near; it is very probable they were in the court of the tabernacle, being Kohathites, of the tribe of Levi; but not being priests, had no right to go into the holy place, where the two sons of Aaron lay dead, without a special order for it, which they here had for this time, and upon this occasion:
carry your brethren from before the sanctuary, out of the camp; the sons of Aaron are called their brethren, though but cousins, it being usual to call any relations brethren, and even if only of the same tribe, yea, of the same nation. Now these were ordered to take the dead bodies of Aaron's sons out of the holy place, and out of the tabernacle, even from before it, which, as Aben Ezra says, was the court over against the camp; and they were to carry them out of the camp into some field, or place adjacent, and there bury them; it not being usual in those times to bury in cities and towns, and much less in places devoted to sacred worship, as the tabernacle was; and therefore they were carried from both the sanctuary and the camp: it is an observation of Aben Ezra, that"some say the incense was before the altar of burnt offering, and the Levites entered there;''but if by incense is meant the altar of incense, the place where these sons of Aaron offered theirs, that was in the holy place, and not in the court, where stood the altar of burnt offering: but they seem to mean as if their incense was offered in another place, and not on the altar, somewhere in the court, and before you come to the altar of burnt offering; and so the persons Moses called could come in thither, and take up their bodies there fallen: but the same writer observes, that others say, that"it was upon the altar of incense (i.e. that their incense was offered), and Moses brought them out of the tabernacle of the congregation,''and then called these men to carry them from thence without the camp.
Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan--The removal of the two corpses for burial without the camp would spread the painful intelligence throughout all the congregation; and the remembrance of so appalling a judgment could not fail to strike a salutary fear into the hearts both of priests and people. The interment of the priestly vestments along with Nadab and Abihu, was a sign of their being polluted by the sin of their irreligious wearers.
Moses then commanded Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel Aaron's paternal uncle, Aaron's cousins therefore, to carry their brethren (relations) who had been slain from before the sanctuary out of the camp, and, as must naturally be supplied, to bury them there. The expression, "before the sanctuary" (equivalent to "before the tabernacle of the congregation" in Leviticus 9:5), shows that they had been slain in front of the entrance to the holy place. They were carried out in their priests' body-coats, since they had also been defiled by the judgment. It follows from this, too, that the fire of Jehovah had not burned them up, but had simply killed them as with a flash of lightning.
Moses called Mishael - For Aaron and his sons were employed in their holy ministrations, from which they were not called for funeral solemnities. Brethren - That is, kinsmen, as that word is oft used. Out of the camp - Where the burying - places of the Jews were, that the living might neither be annoyed by the unwholesome scent of the dead, nor defiled by the touch of their graves.
*More commentary available at chapter level.