Numbers 25:1
The records of the neighboring cities of the plain, and the circumstances of the origin of Moab (Genesis 19:30 ff) suggest that the people among whom Israel was now thrown were more than ordinarily licentious.... [ Continue Reading ]
The records of the neighboring cities of the plain, and the circumstances of the origin of Moab (Genesis 19:30 ff) suggest that the people among whom Israel was now thrown were more than ordinarily licentious.... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY CALLED - i. e., “the daughters of Moab called.”... [ Continue Reading ]
JOINED HIMSELF - i. e., by taking part in the sacrificial meals as described in the last verse. Compare Exodus 34:15; 1 Corinthians 10:18. The worship of Baal was attended with the grossest impurity, and indeed partly consisted in it Hosea 4:14; Hosea 9:10. BAAL-PEOR - i. e., the Baal worshipped at... [ Continue Reading ]
TAKE - i. e., assemble the chiefs of the people to thee (compare the phrase “took men,” in Numbers 16:1). The offenders were to be first; slain by the hands of “the judges of Israel” Numbers 25:5, and afterward hung up “against the sun” (i. e., publicly, openly; compare 2 Samuel 12:12) as an aggrava... [ Continue Reading ]
A MIDIANITE WOMAN - literally, “the Midianite woman,” the particular one by whom he had been enticed (compare Numbers 25:15 and Numbers 31:18). Her high rank proves that Zimri had not fallen in with her by mere chance, but had been deliberately singled out by the Midianites as one whom they must at... [ Continue Reading ]
INTO THE TENT - The inner recess in the tent, fashioned archwise, and appropriated as the sleeping-chamber and women’s apartment.... [ Continue Reading ]
TWENTY AND FOUR THOUSAND - Paul 1 Corinthians 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.... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Numbers 25:13 “covering;” see the note at the typical significance Leviticus 1:4), and the exterminating wrath which had gone forth against the whole people wa... [ Continue Reading ]
MY COVENANT OF PEACE - Equivalent to “the covenant of My peace.” God established with Phinehas in particular that covenant which He had made generally with all his people; and among its blessings peace is especially mentioned, because of the peace between God and the congregation which Phinehas had... [ Continue Reading ]