Numbers 25

Hi,

My wife thought it would be a great idea to write some notes on the section of scripture we studied Friday night, since a couple of families were missing.

As we weave our way through the narrative portions of the Torah, we now find our 40-year wanderers encamped at Shittim (in Moab), a stones throw away from Jericho on the other side of the Jordan River.  This is the last home base the Israelites will have before they make their way into the Promise Land.  It is somewhere between year 38-40 in their journey (probably 38), and pretty much everyone who was 20 years old or older when their trek began is now dead (Moses, Joshua & Caleb being the exceptions).

Numbers 25

Moab Seduces Israel

¹ While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, ² who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. ³ So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD’s anger burned against them.

⁴ The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”

⁵ So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor.”

When will these guys ever learn?  It seems that the lure of the temple prostitutes were just too much for the Israelite men to handle.  The temple of Baal also had lots of food.  I’m pretty sure that the men first snuck out of camp and went to the temple for free food and sex, and then began to worship Baal.  Notice though, that the Moabite women invited them to come.  There is purpose here – it’s not like the Israelite men stumbled on this temple at Peor.  The Moabite women lured them there.

God’s anger burned, the judges put on their swords, and killed the “cancer” in their ranks.  We’ve seen this a few times already in our story of the Exodus.  You would think that the guilty participants would have caught on to this recurring theme by now.

⁶ Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. ⁷ When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand ⁸ and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; ⁹ but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

¹⁰ The LORD said to Moses, ¹¹ “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. ¹² Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. ¹³ He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

¹⁴ The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. ¹⁵ And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

¹⁶ The LORD said to Moses, ¹⁷ “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, ¹⁸ because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.”

OK, so there is a lot of weeping going on because, no doubt, a lot of men have just been killed by the judges.  It also seems that there was a plague to wipe out anyone the judges missed.  While this is going on, Zimri brings a Midianite woman into the encampment, right by the Temple of Meeting (God’s house) and into his tent to have sex with her.  Up to this point, the men had been sneaking out of camp, now Zimri is bringing a woman into camp in broad daylight.  It’s no wonder that Phinehas had some righteous anger.  He promptly shish-kabobed the two, perhaps even in the act (since they were obviously close at the time).

Notice that this was a Midianite woman, not a Moabite woman.  The Moabites were “kin” of the Israelites – the ancestors of one of Lot’s daughters.  The Midianites were nomadic sheepherders who were also kin – the ancestors of Abraham and his last wife after Sarah died.  Neither kin had remained loyal to the One True God, and seemed to be collaborating against Israel at Peor.  True, Moses did marry a Midianite, but the Israelites and Midianites had always disliked each other.  Now God adds the Midianites to His list of people groups to wipe off the face of the earth; because of their sins.  God uses Israel to mete out justice.

Remember the name of the Midianite’s  dad, Zur – we’ll see him later.

Since Chapter 26 is not narrative, we’re skipping it.  Hey, it is the book of Numbers, and there are a lot of numbers here.  What I do find cool about this second census is that the Israelites numbers seem to be very close to the first census.  The first census was taken before 20-year-old and above crowd died.  Versus 20-21 also contain the name Perez – a descendant of King David, and Jesus.