Numbers 25 · Featured Study
ASVThe Covenant of Phinehas
At Shittim, on the edge of the land, Israel joined itself to Moab and its gods, and a plague broke out among the people. One man’s zeal stopped it, and God answered that zeal with a covenant: peace, and an everlasting priesthood. This page tells the story plainly, then follows the covenant through Psalm 106, Malachi, and into Hebrews, where a priesthood that never ends is fulfilled in a greater order than Aaron’s.
Summary
At Baal-peor, Israel's harlotry with Moab brought a plague that killed twenty-four thousand. Phinehas stopped it with a single act of zeal, and God granted him a covenant of peace and an everlasting priesthood, a covenant Psalm 106 says was counted to him for righteousness and Hebrews reads forward into a priesthood that never ends.
- Numbers 25:12-13 names two grants: "my covenant of peace" and "the covenant of an everlasting priesthood"
- Psalm 106:31 uses the same accounting word Genesis 15:6 uses of Abraham's faith: what Phinehas did was "reckoned unto him for righteousness"
- The line of Phinehas in fact carried the high priesthood forward, through Zadok, into the Second Temple period
- John 2:17 puts the same "zeal for thy house" language on Jesus at the temple
- Hebrews 7 reads the everlasting priesthood forward into an order that does not pass to another
Harlotry at Baal-peor
25:1-3: Israel joins itself to Moab, and a plague begins
And Israel abode in Shittim; and the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab: for they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel.At Shittim, Israel joins itself to Moab's feasts and Moab's god, and the anger of the LORD is kindled.
Israel camps at Shittim, on the plains of Moab, on the very edge of the promised land. The people are drawn into the sacrificial feasts of Moab and bow down to Baal-peor, the name joining Baal, the general word for “lord,” to Peor, a mount in Moab. A plague follows, and judgment falls on the leaders and on the men who joined themselves to that worship (25:4-5).
Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor--Baal was a general name for "lord," and Peor for a "mount" in Moab. The real name of the idol was Chemosh, and his rites of worship were celebrated by the grossest obscenity.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Num 25:3
Phinehas and the Spear
25:6-9: one act, and the plague stops
And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting. And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.An Israelite brings a Midianite woman into the camp in plain sight; Phinehas follows them and ends it.
And those that died by the plague were twenty and four thousand.Twenty-four thousand had already died by the time the plague was stayed.
While Moses and the leaders weep at the tent of meeting, one man brings a Midianite woman into the camp openly. Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, takes a spear and follows them, and the plague stops. The two commentators quoted here agree on one point that matters for reading this story rightly: this act is treated by the text itself as extraordinary, not as a pattern to repeat.
The word signifies such a booth or place of retirement as was designed and fitted up for lewdness. Thus he declared his sin as Sodom, as was so far from blushing for it that he rather prided himself in it, and gloried in his shame. All the circumstances concurred to make it exceedingly sinful, exceedingly shameful.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Num 25:8
Thrust both of them through - Inspired undoubtedly by the Spirit of the God of justice to do this act, which can never be a precedent on any common occasion. An act something similar occurs in our own history.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Num 25:8
A contested detail: marriage, or harlotry?Adam Clarke's minority reading
Most commentators read verses 1-8 as one continuous account of sexual immorality with Moabite and Midianite women. Adam Clarke reads the specific pair in verse 6 differently: given that Zimri was a tribal prince and Cozbi a Midianite king’s daughter (25:14-15), he argues the text describes a political marriage rather than an act of fornication in the ordinary sense.
One of the children of Israel - Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief family in the tribe of Simeon, Num 25:14, brought a Midianitish woman, Cozbi, daughter of Zur, head over a people of one of the chief families in Midian, Num 25:15. The condition of these two persons plainly proves it to have been a matrimonial alliance, the one was a prince, the other a princess; therefore I must conclude that fornication or whoredom, in the common sense of the word, was not practiced on this occasion.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832
Num 25:6
Either reading leaves the chapter’s own point standing: the union, whatever its legal form, brought Baal-peor’s worship into the middle of the camp.
The number in the text24,000 here, 23,000 in 1 Corinthians 10:8
Numbers 25:9 gives twenty-four thousand dead; Paul, recalling the same event in 1 Corinthians 10:8, gives twenty-three thousand. Barnes reads the gap as likely reflecting a Jewish tradition that set aside one thousand as slain by Israel’s own hand rather than by the plague itself.
Twenty and four thousand - Paul 1Co 10:8 says “three and twenty thousand,” following probably the Jewish tradition which deducted one thousand as the number slain by the hands of their brethren.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869
Num 25:9
The Covenant of Peace
25:11-13: the grant, and its ground
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and it shall be unto him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.My covenant of peace, and the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, granted for zeal.
The text names the ground of the grant plainly: Phinehas “was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel” (25:13). The wrath turned away from the whole nation is answered with a covenant given to one man and his line.
Hath turned my wrath away - The signal example thus made of a leading offender by Phinehas was accepted by God as an expiation (literally in Num 25:13 “covering;” see the note at the typical significance Lev 1:4), and the exterminating wrath which had gone forth against the whole people was arrested Psa 106:30. The act of Phinehas must be regarded as exceptional.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869Presbyterian
Num 25:11
By the covenant of peace given him, some understand in general a promise of long life and prosperity, and all good; it seems rather to be meant particularly of the covenant of priesthood, for that is called the covenant of life and peace ( Mal. ii. 5 ), and was made for the preservation of peace between God and his people.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Num 25:12
Counted for Righteousness
Psalm 106:30-31: the same accounting word as Genesis 15:6
Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment; And so the plague was stayed. And that was reckoned unto him for righteousness, Unto all generations for evermore.Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment ... and that was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
And he believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.The same reckoning word, used of Abraham's faith centuries earlier.
The Psalm does not say Phinehas earned salvation by his own act. It uses the Bible’s accounting word, reckoned, the same verb Genesis 15:6 uses of Abraham’s faith: an entry credited to someone’s account. Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 106:31 are not describing the same transaction; they use the same word for what it means to have something counted to you.
And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore. Down to the moment when this psalm was penned the house of Phinehas was honoured in Israel. His faith had performed a valorous deed, and his righteousness was testified of the Lord, and honoured by the continuance of his family in the priesthood. He was impelled by motives that what would otherwise have been a deed of blood was justified in the sight of God; nay, more, was made the evidence that Phinehas was righteous.
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 5, 1878Reformed Baptist
Psalm 106:31
The Zeal of the LORD's House
John 2:17 and Psalm 69:9: the same word, on Jesus
His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for thy house shall eat me up.Jesus clears the temple; His disciples remember the Psalm's own words.
For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up; And the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me.“The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up”: the psalm John's disciples remembered.
The word rendered “zeal” is Phinehas’s own word, the ground Numbers 25:13 names for the covenant granted him. John’s disciples reach for that same word to describe Jesus overturning the tables in His Father’s house. The connection is verbal and thematic, not a claim that John 2 is a retelling of Numbers 25.
My Covenant Was With Levi
Malachi 2:4-7: the same covenant, addressed to a later, unfaithful priesthood
And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant may be with Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might fear; and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts.A covenant of life and peace with Levi, and what the priesthood was for: true instruction, a walk with God, turning people from iniquity.
Centuries after Phinehas, Malachi rebukes corrupt priests by naming the same covenant terms, life and peace, given to their own line. Barnes reads the covenant as made with the whole priestly office through Aaron, not with any one priest alone, which is why Malachi can hold living priests to a covenant cut generations earlier.
My covenant was with him life and peace; - literally “the life and the peace;” that, which alone is true “life and peace.” The covenant was not with Levi himself, but with Aaron, his representative, with whom the covenant was made in the desert, as is indeed here expressed; and, in him, with all his race after him, who succeeded him in his office; as, when it is said, that 1Ch 6:49, “Aaron and his sons offered upon the altar of burnt-offering,” it must needs be understood, not of Aaron in person alone and his sons then living, but of any of his race that succeeded in his and their room.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869Presbyterian
Malachi 2:5
An Everlasting Priesthood, Fulfilled
the line of Phinehas, and Hebrews 7's greater order
And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing: but he, because he abideth for ever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.Where Israel's priests are hindered from continuing by death, Christ's priesthood is unchangeable.
The line of Phinehas did in fact carry the high priesthood forward. 1 Chronicles 6:4-8 traces Aaron’s line through Phinehas to Zadok, the priest David and Solomon trusted, and Zadok’s descendants held the office into the Second Temple period, the line the site’s own Sadducees page follows forward. Clarke reads the everlasting priesthood of Numbers 25:13 as pointing past Aaron’s family to the priesthood of Christ, which that family only shadowed.
My covenant of peace - of an everlasting priesthood - As the word peace implied all kinds of blessings, both spiritual and temporal, it may mean no more here than the promise of God, to grant him and his family the utmost prosperity in reference to both worlds. The everlasting priesthood refers properly to the priesthood of Christ which was shadowed out by the priesthood under the law; no matter in what family it was continued.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Num 25:13
But this promise was conditional, and therefore might be made void, by the miscarriages of Phinehas's sons, as it seems it was, and thereupon a like promise was made to Eli of the line of Ithamar, that he and his should walk before the Lord, namely, in the office of high- priest, forever, which also for his and their sins was made void, 1 Sam. ii, 30.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Num 25:13
Wesley’s note is worth holding alongside Clarke’s: the promise ran through failure at points in Israel’s history (the office passed for a time to Eli’s line, 1 Samuel 2:30) before returning to Phinehas’s descendants under Zadok. Hebrews 7 answers that history directly: a priesthood held by mortal men is always hindered by death; the priesthood Christ holds is not.
The Words Underneath
the Hebrew the covenant turns on
The words underneath
berith: covenant
Hebrew · H1285Strong's entry: a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh)
The covenant word itself, granted twice over in 25:12-13: peace, and an everlasting priesthood.
284 times in the Old Testament · berith, in full →
shalom: peace
Hebrew · H7965Strong's entry: safe, i.e. (figuratively) well, happy, friendly; also (abstractly) welfare, i.e. health, prosperity, peace
Peace, wholeness, right order. The word of the grant in 25:12, and the word Malachi 2:5 uses of the same covenant generations later.
236 times in the Old Testament · shalom, in full →
chashab: to devise: design
Hebrew · H2803Strong's entry: properly, to plait or interpenetrate, i.e. (literally) to weave or (generally) to fabricate; figuratively, to plot or contrive (usually in a malicious sense); hence (from the mental effort) to think, regard, value, compute
Reckoned or credited, the accounting word of Psalm 106:31, the same verb Genesis 15:6 uses of Abraham's faith.
124 times in the Old Testament · chashab, in full →
Where to Go Next
The priesthood, traced forward
- Melchizedek the priesthood Hebrews reads as greater than Aaron's own.
- The Sadducees the line Phinehas's descendants carried into the Second Temple.
- The Priest what the office itself was for.
The wider covenant study
- The Abrahamic Covenant the covenant this one stands alongside.
- Read Numbers 25 in the reader.
Word studies
The Hebrew and Greek under this study, each word in its own room.
Where it leads
Featured studies9
- The Abrahamic Covenant: the covenant this one stands alongside
- Melchizedek: the priesthood Hebrews reads as greater than Aaron's
- The Sadducees: the priestly line Phinehas's descendants carried into the Second Temple
- The Priest: what the office was for
- Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism, MannaFest
- The Edenic Covenant, MannaFest
- The Land Covenant, MannaFest
- The Mosaic Covenant, MannaFest
- The Noahic Covenant, MannaFest
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