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Israel, having escaped the curse of Balaam, here sustains a great deal of damage and reproach by the counsel of Balaam, who, it seems, before he left Balak, put him into a more effectual way than that which Balak thought of to separate between the Israelites and their God. "The Lord will not be prevailed with by Balaam's charms to ruin them; try if they will not be prevailed with by the charms of the daughters of Moab to ruin themselves." None are more fatally bewitched than those that are bewitched by their own lusts. Here is, I. The sin of Israel; they were enticed by the daughters of Moab both to whoredom and to idolatry (Num 25:1-3). II. The punishment of this sin by the hand of the magistrate (Num 25:4, Num 25:5) and by the immediate hand of God (Num 25:9). III. The pious zeal of Phinehas in slaying Zimri and Cozbi, two impudent sinners (Num 25:6, Num 25:8, Num 25:14, Num 25:15). IV. God's commendation of the zeal of Phinehas (Num 25:10-13). V. Enmity put between the Israelites and the Midianites, their tempters, as at first between the woman and the serpent (Num 25:16, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 25 The contents of this chapter are, the sin of the people of Israel, their whoredom and idolatry, Num 25:1, their punishment for it, multitudes being slain, Num 25:4, whose number is given, Num 25:9, the zeal of Phinehas in slaying two notorious offenders, Num 25:6, whose names are observed, Num 25:14 for which he is commended, and the covenant of priesthood was given and confirmed unto him, Num 25:10, and the chapter is concluded with an order to vex the Midianites, for vexing Israel with their wiles, Num 25:16.

Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,.... His descent and genealogy is observed as before, partly to show that he was not a private person, but a man of public authority that did the above fact; perhaps one of the judges that Moses ordered to slay every man his man, and therefore what he did by the order of the supreme magistrate; and partly to show that he was heir apparent to the office of high priest, who in course was to succeed in it; nor should this action of his hinder it, but rather serve to secure and confirm it to him: hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel; caused the effects of it to cease, by slaying the two persons, as before related: while he was zealous for my sake among you; for the glory of God, the honour of his law, the credit of religion, and the good of his people, which is a good cause to be zealously affected in, Gal 4:18 in which he was a type of Christ, whose zeal for the house of God, for the doctrine, discipline, and worship of it, for the salvation of his people, and the glory of God thereby, ate him up, Psa 69:9 as well as in his turning away wrath from Israel; sin is the cause of wrath, and for it is revealed from heaven; the people of God are deserving of it as others; but Christ has bore it for them, and so has delivered them from it and all the effects of it, and they are secure from its coming upon them: that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy; by the plague sent among them, being so highly provoked with their shocking abominations.

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. This work was imputed to him by God for righteousness when the Lord says, “Phinehas appeased my rage, and it shall be imputed to him for righteousness.” That earthly food of anger therefore becomes our food when we use it rationally for righteousness.

Punishment by whipping not to exceed forty stripes, Deu 25:1-3. The ox that treads out the corn is not to be muzzled, Deu 25:4. The ordinance concerning marrying the wife of that brother who has died childless, Deu 25:5-10. Of the woman who acts indecently in succouring her husband, Deu 25:11, Deu 25:12. Of false weights and measures, Deu 25:13-16. Amalek is to be destroyed, Deu 25:17-19.

THE ISRAELITES' WHOREDOM AND IDOLATRY WITH MOAB. (Num. 25:1-18) Israel abode in Shittim--a verdant meadow, so called from a grove of acacia trees which lined the eastern side of the Jordan. (See Num 33:49).

For this act of divine zeal the eternal possession of the priesthood was promised to Phinehas and his posterity as Jehovah's covenant of peace. בּקנאו, by displaying my zeal in the midst of them (viz., the Israelites). קנאתי is not "zeal for me," but "my zeal," the zeal of Jehovah with which Phinehas was filled, and impelled to put the daring sinners to death. By doing this he had averted destruction from the Israelites, and restrained the working of Jehovah's zeal, which had manifested itself in the plague. "I gave him my covenant of peace" (the suffix is attached to the governing noun, as in Lev 6:3). בּרית נתן, as in Gen 17:2, to give, i.e., to fulfil the covenant, to grant what was promised in the covenant. The covenant granted to Phinehas consisted in the fact, that an "eternal priesthood" (i.e., the eternal possession of the priesthood) was secured to him, not for himself alone, but for his descendants also, as a covenant, i.e., in a covenant, or irrevocable form, since God never breaks a covenant that He has made. In accordance with this promise, the high-priesthood which passed from Eleazar to Phinehas (Jdg 20:28) continued in his family, with the exception of a brief interruption in Eli's days (see at 1 Sam 1-3 and Sa1 14:3), until the time of the last gradual dissolution of the Jewish state through the tyranny of Herod and his successors (see my Archologie, 38). - In Num 25:14, Num 25:15, the names of the two daring sinners are given. The father of Cozbi, the Midianitish princess, was named Zur, and is described here as "head of the tribes (אמּות, see at Gen 25:16) of a father's house in Midian," i.e., as the head of several of the Midianitish tribes that were descended from one tribe-father; in Num 31:8, however, he is described as a king, and classed among the five kings of Midian who were slain by the Israelites.