Numberschapter 25
18 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
This chapter follows directly on the oracles of Balaam, and the contrast is its point. Israel has been kept safe from every curse spoken against it, and now it falls through its own choices at a feast. The setting is the camp at Shittim on the plains of Moab, near the end of the forty years. In that world, eating a sacrificial meal was an act of loyalty to the god it honoured. Listen for how quickly a meal becomes worship, and for the zeal of a priest that brings a plague to an end. Later Scripture traces the whole disaster back to the advice Balaam gave.
Context
- Who
- A people who survived a professional curse and then accepted an invitation
- What
- A judgment narrative in which Israel joins the worship of Baal of Peor, a plague follows, and Phinehas the priest ends it.
- Where
- The camp at Shittim on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan across from Jericho.
- When
- The fortieth year after the exodus, just before the second census, about 1406 BC by the count of 1 Kings 6:1, or near 1230 BC on a later dating of the exodus.
- Why
- To warn the generation about to enter Canaan that the gods of the land would draw them away through its feasts and its women.
Historical context
The chapter names four people. Moses and the judges, Phinehas the grandson of Aaron, Zimri a leader of a Simeonite family, and Cozbi the daughter of Zur, whom 31:8 lists among the five kings of Midian.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
The time is the fortieth year and the place is Shittim, the last camp before the Jordan.
The occasion is an invitation. The women of Moab invited Israelite men to the sacrifices of their god, and the text lists the steps in order, that the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
A first hearer knew what a sacrificial feast was. It was a meal eaten in the presence of a deity, and eating it was an act of allegiance rather than an evening out.
He also knew that the religion of Canaan and Moab tied the fertility of fields, flocks and womb to ritual practice. Joining the feast and joining the women were one decision in that world rather than two.
He knew the hill. Baal of Peor is the god of the height where Balaam spoke his third oracle at 23:28, so the trap was laid on the ground the oracles had been spoken from. Numbers 31:16 later says outright that the counsel was Balaam's.
And he knew what the act of Phinehas was. Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes both mark it as exceptional and never a precedent, and the chapter is careful to report what stopped, which is the plague.
Significance
The lesson landed hard. Moab's army could not touch them, Moab's hired seer could not curse them, and Moab's dinner invitation nearly finished them.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For a generation about to cross into a land full of exactly these feasts, the timing was the message. The danger in Canaan was not going to be the walls.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi ties this chapter back to Balaam. The women of Moab drew Israel into whoredom "by the advice of Balaam", which he cites to the chapter of Sanhedrin that treats him (Rashi on Numbers 25:1:2, citing Sanhedrin 106a). He describes how the idolatry was worked into it. A woman would produce an image of Peor and require the man to bow to it first (Rashi on Numbers 25:2:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 18). He also explains the name of the god from the rite of exposure practised before it, which he cites to Sanhedrin 60b. The rite is reported here without its details, and Rashi gives them plainly at Rashi on Numbers 25:3:1.
The sentence and the killing are read as a judicial act. Rashi holds that the heads of the people were taken to judge the men who had worshipped. The hanging fell on the worshippers rather than on the heads (Rashi on Numbers 25:4:1 and 25:4:2). He records the arithmetic the Rabbis drew from the command to each judge. Every judge of Israel killed two men, and the judges numbered eighty-eight thousand (Rashi on Numbers 25:5:1, citing Sanhedrin 18a). He has the tribe of Simeon push their prince forward, saying that they were sentenced to death while he stayed quiet (Rashi on Numbers 25:6:1, citing Sanhedrin 82a).
The act of Phinehas is read as law rather than temper. Rashi holds that Phinehas saw what was done and remembered the ruling, and that he put it to Moses as a tradition received from him. A man who has intercourse with a heathen woman may be attacked by the zealous. Moses answered him, "Let him who reads the letter be the agent for executing it", and Phinehas took the javelin (Rashi on Numbers 25:7:1, citing Sanhedrin 82a). Rashi adds that the blow was aimed so that nobody could say the two had been killed without cause, and that other miracles were done for him (Rashi on Numbers 25:8:2, citing Sanhedrin 82b).
The genealogy of the eleventh verse is read as an answer to slander. Rashi records that the tribes spoke against Phinehas as the grandson of a man who had fattened calves for idolatrous sacrifice, and said that he had dared to kill a prince of Israel. Scripture answers by tying his descent to Aaron (Rashi on Numbers 25:11:1, citing Sanhedrin 82b). On the covenant of peace Rashi reads gratitude. God gave him the covenant "just like a man who shows gratitude and friendliness to one who has done him a kindness" (Rashi on Numbers 25:12:1). He notes the habit of Scripture in the two names that follow. Where it gives the descent of a good man in praise, it gives the descent of a bad man in the same account to disparage him (Rashi on Numbers 25:14:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 2).
The last verses are read as a measured judgment on two nations. Rashi holds that the naming of Kozbi as a princess shows how far Midian would go, since they gave up a daughter of their own royal house to make Israel sin (Rashi on Numbers 25:15:1). He then marks what the command leaves out. Midian was to be treated as an enemy, and Moab was not, because Ruth was to come from Moab (Rashi on Numbers 25:18:1, citing Bava Kamma 38b).
Ibn Ezra comments at three places here and the corpus carries none of his text, because the licence Sefaria reports for it does not permit keeping it. He stands cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Numbers 25:2:1, 25:5:1 and 25:7:1.
A Christian reader should see both what is shared and what parts. The classical reading and the Christian one agree that the sin at Peor was idolatry as much as immorality, and that Phinehas acted under a law he had been taught. This site carries the covenant given to him at /featured/phinehas-covenant, and its dossier timeline records the plague at Numbers 25:9 in src/components/book/dossier-content/numbers.ts. The reading of the priesthood that follows from the covenant is where the two traditions go different ways, and the commentators here are reported in their own terms.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Thirty of them are midrashic and ten are Talmudic. Bamidbar Rabbah carries the heaviest run. It stands at 2:18, 11:7, 14:18, 20:7, 20:22, 20:23, 20:24, 21:1 and 21:4. Midrash Tanchuma Buber stands at Pinchas 1:1, 4:1 and 6:1, and at Balak 13:4, with Midrash Tanchuma at Pinchas 3:1. Ein Yaakov stands at Bekhorot 1:4, Sanhedrin 7:15 and Khullin 10:5, and the Glick Edition at Zevachim 12:1.
The rest of the midrashic locators sit in seven works. Midrash Lekach Tov stands at Numbers 19:15:1 and 25:5:1, and at Deuteronomy 33:5:1. Bereshit Rabbah stands at 71:4, 80:10 and 96:3. Midrash Aggadah stands at Genesis 49:27:3, Aggadat Bereshit at 8:2, and Bereshit Rabbati at Parashat Vayeshev 24. Seder Olam Rabbah stands at 7:2, Kohelet Rabbah at 3:8:2, and Otzar Midrashim at Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:27. The Talmudic locators follow the same verses. Chullin stands at 134b:18 and 134b:19, Avot DeRabbi Natan at 1:4 and 41:1, and the Jerusalem Talmud at Sanhedrin 10:2:15 and 10:2:17. Bekhorot stands at 5b:6, Avodah Zarah at 36b:9, Bava Kamma at 116b:14, and Tractate Tzitzit at 1:2. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text, because the corpus holds these locators without it.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 25:1:1 to 25:18:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 25:2:1, 25:5:1 and 25:7:1, cited by ref because the licence the corpus reports does not permit keeping the text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/25.json, the 30 Midrash and 10 Talmud locators of this chapter, fetched 2026-09-19; MannaFest, src/app/featured/phinehas-covenant/page.tsx and src/components/book/dossier-content/numbers.ts, for the covenant and the timeline entry at Numbers 25:9.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Moab's daughters and the god of Peor
Numbers 25:1-2
Four chapters of oracles that could not become a curse are followed by one invitation, and it works. Numbers 31:16 traces it to "the counsel of Balaam", which chapters 22 to 24 never said, and Revelation 2:14 names what he taught Balak, to "eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality". The order runs from the women to their gods' table to the bowing, so appetite ends in worship.
Numbers 25:1
“The records of the neighboring cities of the plain, and the circumstances of the origin of Moab (Gen 19:30 ff) suggest that the people among whom Israel was now thrown were more than ordinarily licentious.”
John Wesley explains that the invitation was to feasts made from the sacrifices. To eat of them was reckoned a share in the worship of the god to whom they were offered. Wesley reads the plural gods as one god, Baal of Peor. Matthew Henry notes that Paul argues from the same principle at 1 Corinthians 10:20.
Numbers 25:2
“I might say that those who deny Christianity on oath at the tribunals or before they have been put on trial do not worship but only bow down to idols when they take "God" from the name of the Lord God and apply it to vain and lifeless wood. Thus the people who were defiled with the daughters of Moab bowed down to idols but did not worship them.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 6patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:2
“Unto the sacrifices - Unto the feasts which were made of their parts of the sacrifices, after the manner of the Jews and Gentiles too, the participation whereof, was reckoned a participation in the worship of that God to whom the sacrifices were offered. Of their gods - Of their God, Baal-peor, the plural Elohim being here used, as commonly it is, for one God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The verb is a yoking word and its subject is the whole nation, so what a number of men did is charged to Israel as one. Deuteronomy 4:3, Joshua 22:17, Psalm 106:28 and Hosea 9:10 all look back to this place, Joshua calling it the sin "from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day". Micah 6:5 sets Shittim in the same line as Balak's counsel and Balaam's answer.
Numbers 25:3
“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 (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:3
“Joined himself - i. e., by taking part in the sacrificial meals as described in the last verse. Compare Exo 34:15; 1Co 10:18. The worship of Baal was attended with the grossest impurity, and indeed partly consisted in it Hos 4:14; Hos 9:10. Baal-peor - i. e., the Baal worshipped at Peer, the place mentioned in Num 23:28 (compare Baal-meon, Num 32:38). (The identification of this god with Chemosh in Num 21:29 is now given up.)”
Numbers 25:4-5
The two orders differ. God tells Moses to take "all the leaders of the people" and execute them, while Moses tells each judge to "kill all of his men who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor". Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the leaders as the principal offenders, and Adam Clarke reads a charge to assemble the chiefs, hold an inquiry, and hang the guilty.
Numbers 25:4
“Take all the heads of the people, etc. - Meaning the chiefs of those who had transgressed; as if he had said, “Assemble the chiefs and judges, institute an inquiry concerning the transgressors, and hang them who shall be found guilty before the Lord, as a matter required by his justice.” Against the sun - in the most public manner, and in daylight.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:4
“The persons ordered here for execution were the principal delinquents in the Baal-peor outrage--the subordinate officers, rulers of tens or hundreds. before the Lord--for vindicating the honor of the true God. against the sun--that is, as a mark of public ignominy; but they were to be removed towards sunset (De 21:23).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the judges as the seventy elders and have them carry out the sentence with their own hands, pointing to 1 Samuel 15:33. John Gill leaves it open. The judges may be the rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens set up on Jethro's advice, and they may have appointed others to do the killing.
Numbers 25:5
“And Moses said unto the judges of Israel,.... Either the same with the heads of the people, or the rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, according to the distribution by the advice of Jethro: slay ye everyone his men, that were joined unto Baalpeor; all that were under their several districts and jurisdictions, that were found guilty of that crime; these they are ordered to slay, either with their own hands, or rather cause to be slain by proper persons they should appoint to be executioners.”
Phinehas takes a spear in his hand
The woman is a Midianite where verse 1 named Moab, a difference verses 17 and 18 take up when war is ordered against Midian. It is done before Moses and a congregation "weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting", so a public grief is answered in public. Both names wait until verses 14 and 15, so the deed is told before the man's rank.
Numbers 25:6
“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 (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 25:7-8
Phinehas, Aaron's grandson and a priest, takes "a spear in his hand", while Matthew Henry reads the rare word for tent in verse 8 as a place fitted up for the act. Verse 8 ends with the plague halted, though no plague was ever said to start. Psalm 106:30 tells it the same way: "Phinehas stood and intervened, and the plague was restrained".
Numbers 25:7
“And lest we appear to you to bring these things forth from our own understanding rather than from the authority of the divine Scriptures, go back to the book of Numbers and recall what Phinehas the priest did when he saw a harlot of the Midianite people with an Israelite man clinging in impure embraces in the eyes of all. Filled with the wrath of divine jealousy, he drove a sword, which he had seized, through the breast of both.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON GENESIS 1:17patristic
Matthew Henry defends the deed as lawful. He takes Phinehas as one of the judges Moses had just commanded to slay the offenders, and he denies that the act licenses private persons to kill in the name of zeal. Cyril of Jerusalem sets the deed beside Christ, who slew no one and gave his own life, and asks whether he will not take away God's wrath.
Numbers 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 (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 25:8
“But when we are aware of his attacks, we ought to repeat to ourselves the apostolic words, "As many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death." Now if we have been conformed to His death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse, pierced through by the javelin of Baptism, as that fornicator was thrust through by the zealous Phinehas. Flee therefore from us, ill-omened one! for it is a corpse thou seekest to despoil, one long ago joined to thee, one who long since lost his senses for pleasures.”
Gregory of Nyssa · written before 395 · ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRISTpatristic
Numbers 25:8
“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 (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 25:9-10
Numbers gives 24,000 and 1 Corinthians 10:8 gives "twenty-three thousand", with Paul adding that they died "in one day". John Gill counts the judges' executions in the larger figure, and Albert Barnes reports a Jewish tradition that deducts a thousand slain by their own people. Numbers gives no span and Paul gives one day, so the two figures stand as written, unsettled by the text.
Numbers 25:9
“And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. The apostle says 23,000 1Co 10:8. Moses includes those that were hanged against the sun, in the time of the plague, as well as those that were taken off by it, even all that died on this account; the apostle only those that "fell", which cannot with propriety be said of those that were hanged, who might be 1000 and so their numbers agree; but of this and other ways of removing this difficulty See Gill on 1Co 10:8.”
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 25:9
“As far as that goes, we too have examples from this same past in favor of our own way of thinking, examples of a judgment on fornication which was not only not remiss but rather immediately executed. It is quite enough, I should think, that so great a number of the chosen people, twenty-four thousand, perished at one stroke after they had fornicated with the daughters of Midian. I prefer, however, for the glory of Christ, to derive ecclesiastical discipline from Christ.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · ON PURITY 6.6.12-14patristic
Numbers 25:9
“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.”
A covenant of peace and lasting priesthood
John Gill places this word after the plague had ended and after the act of Phinehas that stopped it. He supposes it came from the tabernacle, at whose door Moses and the people had been weeping in verse 6. The verdict on the deed comes from God himself. Matthew Henry notes that the other judges had held back out of respect for Zimri's rank.
Numbers 25:10
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Out of the cloud, or out of the tabernacle, at the door of which Moses now was, Num 25:6, this was after so many had died of the plague, and after the fact of Phinehas, by which it was stopped: saying; as follows.”
Numbers 25:11-12
The words "zealous for My sake" and "My zeal" come from one Hebrew root, so the man's zeal and God's share one term. He receives "My covenant of peace", and Malachi 2:5 joins the same pair for Levi: "My covenant with him was one of life and peace". Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke call the deed exceptional, Clarke saying that it can never be a precedent on any common occasion.
Numbers 25:11
“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.”
my covenant of peace: Albert Barnes renders the phrase the covenant of My peace, the covenant God made with all His people, now fixed on Phinehas in particular. John Wesley reads peace two ways. Phinehas had made peace between God and Israel, and the priest's standing work was to keep that peace by sacrifice, incense and prayer. Barnes links the office of peacemaking to Ephesians 2:14.
Numbers 25:12
“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 (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:12
“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 (1707-1721)puritan
A man with a spear "made atonement for the Israelites", the verb of a priest's work at the altar. The high priesthood runs through Phinehas, still serving before the ark at Judges 20:28, and 1 Chronicles 6:4-8 traces Zadok, high priest from 1 Kings 2:35, back through him to Eleazar. Adam Clarke reads it as pointing properly to the priesthood of Christ, shadowed under the law.
Numbers 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 (1765)evangelical
Numbers 25:14-16
was Zimri, the son of Salu: The names come after the act, and both belong to ruling houses. Zimri is "the leader of a Simeonite family", and Cozbi is the daughter of Zur, listed at Numbers 31:8 among the five kings of Midian killed in the war ordered here. Simeon numbered 59,300 at Numbers 1:23 and 22,200 at Numbers 26:14, the largest drop of any tribe, and Numbers never links that figure to this chapter.
Numbers 25:14
“Now the name of the Israelite that was slain,.... By Phinehas, as before related: even that was slain with the Midianitish woman; who was slain also, both together with one thrust: was Zimri, the son of Sela, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites; or a prince of his father's house, or family; there were five families of the Simeonites, and this man was a prince of one of them, see Num 26:12 though Josephus (h), and so the Samaritan Chronicle (i), make him to be a prince of the tribe of Simeon.”
Cozbi, the daughter of Zur: Albert Barnes reads her rank as a sign of design. A king's daughter would not meet a prince of Simeon by chance, and Barnes holds that the Midianites singled Zimri out. John Gill cites the Samaritan Chronicle, which says a king's daughter enticed a Simeonite prince to eat her food and worship her gods. Verse 18 names her again.
Numbers 25:15
“And the name of the Midianitish woman that was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur,.... One of the five kings of Midian, Num 31:8 and so the Samaritan Chronicle says (k), it was the daughter of a king that came to a prince of the tribe of Simeon, and enticed him to eat of her food, and worship her idols.”
Treat Midian as the enemy she has been
John Gill thinks this word came some time after the events at Peor, though how long is not recorded, and a little before the death of Moses. He points to 31:1. Matthew Henry contrasts the two punishments. Israel was corrected as children with a rod, and Midian was met with the sword of an enemy.
Numbers 25:16
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... This was some time after the above affair happened; how long it was is not certain; and a little time before the death of Moses, see Num 31:1, saying; as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:16
“1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. 2 And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. 3 And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the L ORD was kindled against Israel.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 25:17-18
War is ordered against Midian though verse 1 named the daughters of Moab, and verse 18 gives the ground: "they assailed you deceitfully when they seduced you in the matter of Peor". Deuteronomy 23:3-6 deals with Moab another way, shutting the Moabite out of the assembly and naming the hiring of Balaam. The order is carried out in Numbers 31, whose verse 16 finally traces the counsel to Balaam.
Numbers 25:17
“Vex the Midianites, etc. - See this order fulfilled, Numbers 31:1-20. Twelve thousand Israelites attacked the Midianites, destroyed all their cities, slew their five kings, every male, and every grown up woman, and took all their spoils.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 25:17
“The Midianites - And why not the Moabites. It is probable the Midianites were most guilty, as in persuading Balak to send for Balaam, chap. xxii, 4, 7. So in the reception of Balaam after Balak had dismissed him, chap. xxxi, 8, and in farther consultation with him, and in contriving the means for the executing of this wicked plot.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley reads the deceit as friendship offered where war was expected. Under the claim of kinship and alliance, Midian sought the curse it had failed to bring by other means. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take their sister to mean their countrywoman. Cozbi's death is dated by the plague, which ties her to the whole disaster.
Numbers 25:18
“Note, Whatever draws us to sin should be a vexation to us, as a thorn in the flesh. The mischief which the Midianites did to Israel by enticing them to whoredom must be remembered and punished with as much severity as that which the Amalekites did in fighting with them when they came out of Egypt, Exod. xvii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative of national apostasy and judgment, with a covenant granted at the end of it, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| They ate, and they bowed down | Verses 1 and 2 list the steps in order and the order is the point. The women of Moab invite, the people eat, and the people bow down to their gods. What starts as appetite ends in worship, and the chapter gives each step its own clause. | Numbers 25:1, Numbers 25:2, Numbers 25:3 |
| Israel yoked himself | The verb at verse 3 is a yoking word and the subject of the sentence is the whole nation. What a number of men did is charged to Israel as one, and four later passages take up the verse in the same terms. | Numbers 25:3 |
| Zeal and jealousy, one root | The word behind zealous for my sake at verse 11 and the word behind my jealousy come from one root, so the man's zeal and God's jealousy are named with the same term. The chapter states the reason for the grant in that one word.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 25:11. | Numbers 25:11 |
| The plague that is reported by its stopping | Verse 8 ends by saying the plague was stayed, which is the first mention of a plague anywhere in the chapter. The narrative reports the stopping of something it never reported starting, and Psalm 106:30 tells it the same way. | Numbers 25:8, Numbers 25:9 |
The chapter is the answer to the three before it. Moab's army could not touch Israel, Moab's hired seer could not curse Israel, and Moab's dinner invitation nearly finished it. Numbers 31:16 says outright that this was Balaam's counsel, which chapters 22 to 24 never said.
12 more paragraphs on the patterns
The place carries the rest of the book. Baal of Peor is the god of the hill where Balaam spoke his third oracle at 23:28, so he was standing on the ground where his advice would accomplish what his oracles could not.
Four later passages look back at this place. Deuteronomy 4:3 tells the next generation their own eyes saw what was done because of Peor. Joshua 22:17 calls it an iniquity from which we are not cleansed to this day. Psalm 106:28 says they ate the sacrifices of the dead. Hosea 9:10 says they consecrated themselves to that shame. Micah 6:5 sets Shittim in the same line as Balak's plan and Balaam's answer.
The decrease of Simeon runs alongside. Zimri is named at verse 14 as a leader of a Simeonite family. Simeon numbered fifty nine thousand three hundred at 1:23 and twenty two thousand two hundred at 26:14, the largest fall of any tribe between the two counts. Numbers draws no line between that figure and this chapter, and this row does not draw one either.
The New Testament's use
1 Corinthians 10:8 takes up the number, giving twenty three thousand and adding that they fell in one day. Revelation 2:14 names the two things Balaam taught Balak to set before Israel, food offered to idols and sexual immorality. The New Testament therefore reads the chapter as a trap that was laid. Peter and Jude carry the same verdict on the man behind it, at 2 Peter 2:15 and Jude 11.
Malachi 2:5 uses the pair of words granted to Phinehas here, my covenant was with him of life and peace, of the covenant with Levi.
The debated point
Who the leaders of verse 4 are is disputed. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take them as the principal offenders in the outrage at Peor. Adam Clarke reads the order as a charge to assemble the chiefs, hold an inquiry, and hang those found guilty. Deuteronomy 21:22 to 23 is the law that governs a body hung on a tree, and it requires the body taken down and buried the same day.
The two numbers are the second point. Numbers gives twenty four thousand and 1 Corinthians 10:8 gives twenty three thousand in one day. John Gill takes the larger figure to include the men the judges executed. Albert Barnes reports the Jewish tradition that deducts from the total the thousand killed by their brothers. Numbers gives no span for its number and Paul limits his to a single day, and the two figures stand as written.
The third point is the war itself. The dossier for this book handles the Midianite war of chapter 31 on the text's own stated ground. That ground is the deception at Peor which Balaam is said to have counselled at 31:2 to 3 and 31:16, and the dossier goes no further than the text and the evidence support.
Where to go deeper
The grant to Phinehas is set out at the covenant of Phinehas. The office he held is set out at the priest. The seer whose counsel the chapter carries out is owed a feature page, and the row for chapter 22 carries the full presentation. The generation that fell here is set out at the wilderness generation.
Keep studying
Places1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 25:12; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1866 to 1891, on Numbers 25 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Numbers 25:1.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 13.2; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown; John Gill; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry.