Chapter Twenty-Five

Israel’s whoredom in Shittim. – The smiting of those who sinned. – The religious zeal of Phinehas. – The return of God’s mercy to the people. – The command concerning the Midianites.

Numbers 25:1. And Israel lived in Shittim, and the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab, Numbers 25:2. and they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate [their sacrifices] and bowed down to their gods. Numbers 25:3. And Israel joined themselves to Baal-Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. “Shittim” (Abel-Shittim) means a field of acacia trees. It is mentioned in Num 33:49 and in Josh 2:1. Licentious orgies were part of the rites of worship of certain deities of the Chaldean religion that had spread to Phoenicia and Canaan. Knowing the coarse, sensual character of the Hebrew people, Balaam had no doubt that the lusts (Num 31:16; see Josephus, Antiquities 4:6) of carnal pleasure would cause the Israelites to forget Jehovah and fornicate in honor of foreign gods. “And the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab,...and Israel joined themselves to Baal-Peor.”

Numbers 25:4. And the Lord said to Moses: Take all the leaders of the people and hang them before the Lord in the daylight, and the fierce anger of the Lord will turn away from Israel. “All the leaders of the people” who sinned by sacrifices and whoredome in honor of a pagan god, “hang them before the sun,” that is, during the interval before sunset: after sunset the bodies of the hanged were to be taken down by law (Deut 21:22).

Numbers 25:5. And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Kill each one of your men who have joined themselves to Baal-Peor. “To the judges of Israel” means to the ruling persons among the tribes of Israel.

Numbers 25:8. and went after the Israelite into the tent and thrust both of them through, the Israelite and the woman in her belly, and the plague on the sons of Israel ceased. “Pierced them,” following the impulse of zeal for the glory of God’s name and the directions of the law concerning the death penalty for idolaters (Lev 20:2; Deut 13:8). “The right of zeal” – jus zelotyparum – is recognized by rabbinical teaching as belonging to every Hebrew in cases of danger of temptation for the people (see John 2:14). “And the plague on the sons of Israel ceased.” Besides the execution of the transgressors by the judgment of Moses and the judges, the people who had whored were punished, apparently, by some devastating disease.

Numbers 25:9. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand. The apostle Paul counts (1 Cor 10:8) the dead not as 24, but as 23 thousand, following the Jewish tradition according to which a thousand people died not from the “plague” but by the sword according to the judgment of Moses and the judges.

Numbers 25:13. and it shall be to him and to his seed after him a covenant of an eternal priesthood, because he showed zeal for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel. Until the high priest Eli, the high priesthood continuously remained in the offspring of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron. In the time of Eli the high priesthood temporarily passes from the house of Eleazar to the house of Ithamar (that Eli was of the house of Ithamar is proved by the fact that in 1 Sam 2:27 Abiathar, removed from the high priesthood, is named a descendant of Eli; in 2 Sam 8:17 Ahimelech is named the son of Abiathar, and in 1 Chr 24:3 the same Ahimelech is called a descendant of Ithamar); but in the time of Solomon the high priest Zadok again returns the high priesthood to the house of Phinehas. The offspring of Zadok furnishes Israel with high priests right up to the Babylonian exile. Tradition adds that (with a brief interruption under Eli, and then under David) the offspring of Phinehas performed the sacred ministry until the time of the great High Priest himself (Vlastov).

Numbers 25:18. because they dealt treacherously with you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague because of Peor. “For Peor,” that is, for whoredom in honor of Baal-Peor.