Numbers 25:3

And the anger of the Lord burned against the people, so that Jehovah commanded Moses to fetch the heads of the people, i.e., to assemble them together, and to "hang up" the men who had joined themselves to Baal-Peor "before the Lord against the sun," that the anger of God might turn away from Israel. The burning of the wrath of God, which was to be turned away from the people by the punishment of the guilty, as enjoined upon Moses, consisted, as we may see from Num 25:8, Num 25:9, in a plague inflicted upon the nation, which carried off a great number of the people, a sudden death, as in Num 14:37; Num 17:11. הוקיע, from יקע, to be torn apart or torn away (Ges., Winer), refers to the punishment of crucifixion, a mode of capital punishment which was adopted by most of the nations of antiquity (see Winer, bibl. R. W. i. p. 680), and was carried out sometimes by driving a stake into the body, and so impaling them (ἀνασκολοπίζειν), the mode practised by the Assyrians and Persians (Herod. iii. 159, and Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 374, and plate on p. 369), at other times by fastening them to a stake or nailing them to a cross (ἀνασταυροῦν). In the instance before us, however, the idolaters were not impaled or crucified alive, but, as we may see from the word הרגּוּ in Num 25:5, and in accordance with the custom frequently adopted by other nations (see Herzog's Encyclopaedia), they were first of all put to death, and then impaled upon a stake or fastened upon a cross, so that the impaling or crucifixion was only an aggravation of the capital punishment, like the burning in Lev 20:14, and the hanging (תּלה) in Deu 21:22. The rendering adopted by the lxx and Vulgate is παραδειγματίζειν, suspendere, in this passage, and in Sa2 21:6, Sa2 21:9, ἐξηλιάζειν…

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.).

25:3 Baal of Peor might refer to Chemosh (21:29) by a different name, but probably Baal (“lord”), the Canaanite god, was included on the list of deities honored by the Moabites. Numerous place-names were formed with this deity’s name (e.g., Baal-gad, Baal-hermon, Baal-meon, Baal-peor), representing shrines for local manifestations of Baal. Peor was a mountain from which Balaam could see the Israelite camp in the plains of Moab; the mountain and the related shrine of Beth-peor (23:28; 25:3, 5, 18; 31:16; Deut 3:29; 4:3, 46; 34:6; Josh 13:20; 22:17) were somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Nebo. • Israel’s idolatry caused the Lord’s anger to blaze against his people; this included a plague (Num 25:8-9; 26:1; cp. 11:1, 10; 12:9).