Numbers 25:4
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Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that His fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
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.).
Open source ↗25:4 As he had at Sinai (Exod 32:27-28), the Lord required swift justice. • execute . . . in broad daylight: The guilty parties were perhaps impaled and left out in the sun (see 2 Sam 21:6, 9) so that everyone could see them and learn from their mistakes (cp. 2 Sam 12:12).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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Nothing devoted to destruction shall cling to your hands, so that the LORD will turn from His fierce anger, grant you mercy, show you compassion, and multiply you as He swore to your fathers,
Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all who followed Baal of Peor.
“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the Israelites; for he was zealous for My sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in My zeal.
you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
let seven of his male descendants be delivered to us so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” “I will give them to you,” said the king.
For they assailed you deceitfully when they seduced you in the matter of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianite leader, the woman who was killed on the day the plague came because of Peor.”
you must surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword. Devote to destruction all its people and livestock.
he summoned all Israel, including its elders, leaders, judges, and officers. “I am old and well along in years,” he said,
So Moses chose capable men from all Israel and made them heads over the people as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
that wicked men have arisen from among you and have led the people of their city astray, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods” (which you have not known),