Israel sins at Baal-Peor
25
📚And Israel stayed in Shittim, and the people began to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab. 2 📚And those women called the people to the sacrifices for their gods; and the people ate the sacrificial meal, and bowed down to their gods.3 📚And Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor; and the LORD’s anger 📖 burned against Israel.
4 📚And the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people, and hang them in the LORD’s presence, in the sunlight, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may be turned away from Israel”.
5 📚And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor”.
25:4-5 In order for God’s anger to turn away, sin had to be condemned, judged, and punished.⚜
6 📚And one of the children of Israel appeared coming and bringing a Midianite woman to his brothers in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping in front of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
25:6 This was a terribly presumptuous sin from a leader in Israel (v 14; Num 15:30-31).⚜
7 📚And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the congregation, took a spear in his hand, 8 📚went into the tent after the man of Israel, and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her stomach. So the plague on the children of Israel was stopped. 9 📚But twenty-four thousand died in the plague.
10 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 11 📚“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, for he was zealous for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in my jealousy. 12 📚Therefore say, See, I give him my covenant of peace. 13 📚And he will have it, and his offspring after him, this covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel”.
25:7-13 Phinehas acted for God’s honor, punished the sin, and so turned away God’s anger. See notes at Num 31:2; Ex 21:23-25. He is one of many in the Bible who were zealous for God and felt keenly any affront to God’s honor (1 Sam 17:26, 46, 47; 1 Kings 19:10). Indeed do not all true believers experience something of this? God sees this desire for His honor in His people and He rewards it (1 Sam 2:30).⚜
14 📚Now the name of the Israelite who was killed, the one who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a leader of a chief household among the Simeonites. 15 📚And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was a leader of a people, and of a chief household in Midian.
16 📚And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 📚“Trouble the Midianites, and strike them down, 18 📚for they troubled you with their tricks, with which they deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite chief, their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague that came because of Peor”.