Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 25-26.

After the failure of Balak’s plan to have Balaam curse the Israelites, the Moabite women began seducing the Israelite men.  It is not clear if the men took part in the worship of Baal of Peor because it involved sexual activity, or if they took part in illicit sexual affairs with Moabite women and then joined them in worship of Baal afterwards.  I lean towards the former, but can see an argument for the latter.  In any case, those Israelite men who were conducting these sexual liaisons in blatant violation of the sexual laws already laid down became so brazen that one of them brought a woman to his tent past the assembly of the people who had met to decide how to address the issue.  The whole incident ended when Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, killed the man who flaunted his disobedience and disrespect before the entire community, and the woman with whom he committed these acts.  The assembly had decided that those within their midst who had yoked themselves with the Baal of Peor by having sex with women who were part of that cult.  This man decided to challenge that edict.  Phinehas did not hesitate to act.  By doing so, he ended a plague which took the lives of 24,000 Israelites (probably a sexually transmitted disease).  Phinehas acted decisively.  When the Church has reached a decision on an issue, we should act with similar decisiveness (although I do not think the Church should be making decisions to take people’s lives).

I want to make one other point about this story.  This story clearly identifies the Israelite man whom Phinehas killed, and the woman who was killed along with him.  It gives both of their names, and their lineage.  Typically, when a story like this is made up, the people involved, other than the “hero” of the story, are only vaguely identified: “an Israelite man”, or “a Midianite woman”.  The story starts off that way and one might start to think, “Oh, this story was just made up”, even though the specific individuals who m Phinehas killed is not important to the story.  Then, when the story is complete, the writer goes, “Oh, by the way, it was these two specific people.”  The fact that the name and lineage of each of the people killed was given provides evidence that this account was not just a story made up to explain something.  It actually happened and the people who first told the story actually knew the people involved.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.