Old Testament

Numbers 25

Apostasy, Plague, and the Zeal of Phinehas

5 passages

Overview

On the eve of entering Canaan, Israel falls into sexual immorality and the worship of Baal of Peor, drawing a devastating plague upon the people; Phinehas halts the plague by executing the Israelite prince Zimri and the Midianite noblewoman Cozbi in an act of holy zeal that God rewards with a covenant of everlasting priesthood, before commanding Moses to treat Midian as an enemy for their calculated seduction of Israel.

Passages

1–5The Seduction of Idolatry: Israel's Fall at Baal Peor 6–9The Zeal of Phinehas and the Stopping of the Plague 10–13Zeal for God's Honor: The Everlasting Covenant with Phinehas 14–15Named Before God: The Gravity of Zimri and Cozbi 16–18Resist the Corruptor: God's Command Against Midianite Seduction

Study Resources

Numbers 25

¹Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab; ²for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, and Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel. ⁴Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to Yahweh before the sun, that the fierce anger of Yahweh may turn away from Israel.”

⁵Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.”

⁶Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite 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. ⁷When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the middle of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. ⁸He 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 stopped among the children of Israel. ⁹Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰Yahweh 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, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy. ¹²Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace. ¹³It shall be to him, and to his offspring after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’”

¹⁴Now the name of the man of Israel that was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house among the Simeonites. ¹⁵The name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of a fathers’ house in Midian.

¹⁶Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁷“Harass the Midianites, and strike them; ¹⁸for they harassed you with their wiles, wherein they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the incident regarding Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor.”

Numbers 24 Numbers 26