Leviticus 10:19

Aaron in his reply admits that he should have eaten the Sin-Offering, but gives as a reason for not doing so -there have befallen me such things as these." This is explained as a reference to the death of his sons. Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar were forbidden to mourn for them; but Aaron considered their death as a sign that God was displeased and refrained from eating the Sin-Offering. The whole incident presents difficulties which have not been satisfactorily explained, one of which is that the sacrifice to which Moses refers belongs to that class of which the priests were not to eat. The direction in Leviticus 6:26, that the priest who offers a Sin-Offering -shall eat it" is there limited in Leviticus 6:30, by forbidding that this shall be done when any of the blood has been brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement. In accordance with this restriction, the rebuke by Moses in Leviticus 10:18 is justified, but on the other hand it should be noted that no blood has yet been brought into the Holy place, not even that of the calf for Aaron's Sin-Offering (Leviticus 9:8 ff.), and yet no objection against the burning of it was made by Moses.

For one who desired to defend the burning of all the parts the argument would be fairly obvious that the rules for the Sin-Offering of the priest as laid down in Leviticus 4:3 ff. direct this course. Aaron's line of defence, however, is wholly different. Dillm. suggests that the section as it now stands has arisen through the expansion of an older and simpler narrative in P, in which was set forth the original disinclination of the priests to partake of the flesh of the Sin-Offering.

The most probable explanation of the passage is that it is an attempt to account for a discrepancy between the earlier and later ritual. That the priests should abstain, in the contemplated case, from eating the victim whose blood had not been brought into the sanctuary, was opposed to the later custom, and thus needed special circumstances to justify it, and the consequent sanction of Moses.