Numbers 25:8

Through this judgment, which was executed by Phinehas with holy zeal upon the daring sinners, the plague was restrained, so that it came to an end. The example which Phinehas had made of these sinners was an act of intercession, by which the high priest appeased the wrath of God, and averted the judgment of destruction from the whole congregation ("he was zealous for his God," ויכפּר, Num 25:13). The thought upon which this expression is founded is, that the punishment which was inflicted as a purifying chastisement served as a "covering" against the exterminating judgment (see Herzog's Cyclopaedia). (Note: Upon this act of Phinehas, and the similar examples of Samuel (Sa1 15:33) and Mattathias (1 Macc. 2:24), the later Jews erected the so-called "zealot right," jus zelotarum, according to which any one, even though not qualified by his official position, possessed the right, in cases of any daring contempt of the theocratic institutions, or any daring violation of the honour of God, to proceed with vengeance against the criminals. (See Salden, otia theol. pp. 609ff., and Buddeus, de jure zelotarum apud Hebr. 1699, and in Oelrich's collect. T. i. Diss. 5.) The stoning of Stephen furnishes an example of this.) Num 25:9 Twenty-four thousand men were killed by this plague. The Apostle Paul deviates from this statement in Co1 10:8, and gives the number of those that fell as twenty-three thousand, probably from a traditional interpretation of the schools of the scribes, according to which a thousand were deducted from the twenty-four thousand who perished, as being the number of those who were hanged by the judges, so that only twenty-three thousand would be killed by the plague; and it is to these alone that Paul refers.

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.).