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 Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. 5 And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor. 6 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, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; 8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. 9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
(Numbers 25:1-9 KJV)
Thomas Haweis
Numbers Chapter 25 –Before Christ, 1451
Here is, 1. The sin of Israel, ver. 1-3. 2. The punishment of this sin, ver. 4-9. 3. The pious zeal of Phineas in slaying Zimri and Cozbi, two impudent sinners, ver. 6, 8, 14, 15. 4. God’s commendation of the zeal of Phineas, ver. 10, 13. 5. Enmity put between the Israelites and the Midianites, ver. 16-18.
Verses 1-5: Balaam’s counsel, before he left Moab, produced a worse effect than his intended curse could have done; and the charms of Moab’s daughters proved a more fatal snare to Israel’s hosts than all his enchantments. The alluring arts of lascivious beauty are the strongest witchcraft of the devil. Observe,
1. The crying sin Israel committed, whoredom and idolatry. The daughters of Moab, armed with more offensive weapons than Balak’s mighty warriors, with eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin, and tongues smoother than oil, yet sharper than drawn swords, beset them, and (shameful) to tell! Prevail. Bound in these silken cords of pleasure, they run to those sacrifices they before abhorred; for the gratification of bestial appetites the deny their God, and sacrifice to the abomination of the Moabites. Blind to the happy land before them, even at Shittim, in full view of it, they prefer a present lust to all the promises of the covenant God. Dreadful and aggravated crime! Note, (1.) They, who tempt others to sin, are the guiltiest instruments of the devil. (2.) The love women is the most dangerous of temptations. (3.) Flight is the only conquest. (4.) If once the heart be ensnared, there are no lengths unto which the miserable slave of lust and beauty may not be led. (5.) Nothing more endangers the soul’s final apostasy from God, than yielding to the solicitations of the flesh. (6.) By this sin especially the Spirit of God is grieved, and the wrath of God brought down upon the sinner.
2. The judgment of God upon them. They will buy pleasure dear, who purchase it at the price of God’s displeasure, and eternal damnation. Execution is immediately done upon the princes, the chief of the offenders; they are hung before the Lord, and a plague consumes the people. Note, (1.) The fire of lust and the flames of hell are inseparable. (2.) The greatness of the offender is an aggravation of the crime, and therefore such should never be spared. (3.) The plagues of God will quickly turn the sweets of forbidden pleasure into the gall of asps, and the gnawing of the worm that never dies.
Thomas Scott
Verses 6-8. This action of Zimri and Cozbi was done in direct defiance of God himself, as well as that of Moses and of the congregation, who in great multitudes were penitently confessing their sins, and deprecating the divine displeasure. It was the greatest insult and outrage imaginable upon all authority, divine and human; upon all order, and even common decency, in such circumstances, whilst numbers were dying by the sword of the magistrate, and much greater multitudes by the hand of God, for a man thus to triumph in his wickedness, and to dare the sword of justice. Phinehas was the second priest, and successor to the high priesthood, and doubtless as high in authority as in rank. As a magistrate he was commissioned by Moses and by God to slay “those who were joined to Baalpeor.” Zimri was notoriously and avowedly guilty; but whilst others trembled to come near him, Phinehas boldly executed vengeance upon him and his infamous paramour at once. No conduct could in every view be more unexceptionable; nor can it ever be drawn into a precedent to countenance acts of private revenge, of religious persecution, or even of irregular public vengeance. The objections. therefore of some infidels to this part of holy scripture, expose their ignorance, or disingenuity, as much as their hatred of this sacred book. For there is not one of them (religion out of the question) but in such a crisis, when a daring rebel set the regular magistracy at defiance, and evidently meant to instigate the people to revolt, would have allowed that the welfare of the community was the chief law, and that so extraordinary a case required an extraordinary remedy, and would have applauded a decisive measure, though irregular—which, after all, this does not appear in the least to have been.
John Wesley’s Notes on the Old and New Testament
V. 9. Twenty four thousand-St. Paul says twenty three thousand, 1Co 10:8. The odd thousand here added were slain by the Judges according to the order of Moses, the rest by the immediate hand of God, but both sorts died of the plague, the word being used, as often it is, for the sword, or hand, or stroke of God.