Lives of Scripture

Elzaphan (also spelled Elizaphan) was a son of Uzziel and a cousin of Aaron and Moses through the Kohathite branch of Levi (Exodus 6:22). His defining moment comes at a solemn point in Israel's wilderness worship: after Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu offered "strange fire" before the LORD that He had not commanded and were struck dead for it (Leviticus 10:1-2), Moses called Elzaphan and his brother Mishael forward and instructed them, "Come forward, carry your relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp" (10:4). They obeyed immediately, carrying the bodies out still in their tunics, as Moses had ordered (10:5) -- a task Aaron and his remaining sons could not perform themselves, since they were forbidden from the normal rites of mourning while still serving at the newly consecrated tabernacle (10:6-7). Elzaphan later served as head of the Kohathite family division among the Levites (Numbers 3:30), and his descendants are noted generations later assisting in Hezekiah's temple reforms (2 Chronicles 29:13). His one recorded act -- removing the dead from before the sanctuary at Moses' command -- underscores how seriously God's holiness was to be guarded at the tabernacle's very founding.