Psalms 106:28-30

They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor To wit, in worship, whereby they had a union and communion with him, as God's people have with God in acts of his worship. And ate the sacrifices of the dead Which were offered to idols, which he calls dead, in opposition to the true and living God, and by way of contempt, and to denote the stupidity of idolaters, who worshipped lifeless things, as dead images, or men deified after death. Or, by the sacrifices of the dead, he may mean sacrifices offered to the infernal deities, so called, on behalf of their dead friends. They provoked him with their inventions Various species of idolatry, and false worship, and other branches of wickedness, devised in contempt of God and his institutions, his commands and threatenings. And the plague brake in upon them And swept away twenty-four thousand of those impudent sinners. Then stood up Phinehas In his zeal for the Lord of hosts; and executed judgement Namely, upon Zimri and Cozbi, sinners of the first rank; genteel sinners; he put the law in execution upon them; and this was a service so pleasing to God, that upon it the plague was stayed, Psalms 106:30. By this, and some other like acts of public justice on that occasion, Numbers 25:4, the guilt ceased to be national, and the general controversy was let fall: when the proper officers did their duty, God left it to them, and did not any longer keep the work in his own hands by the plague. The best commentary on this Psalm is a reference to the history.