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

I start a new job today and am unsure how that will impact my ability to continue this blog in the short term.  I entries completed about a week in advance at the moment (usually I am about two days in advance).  Hopefully that will give me enough time to figure out how to work out my new schedule to keep this going without interruption.

When Balak’s plan to curse the Israelites failed, the Moabites began seducing the Israelite men into worshiping their god, Baal of Peor.  It is worth noting that it appears that Baal did not refer to an individual deity, but instead to the chief god of a geographical location so that the Baal of Peor was a distinct god from Baal of Eshkalom (although evidence suggests that the worship practices for each were similar if not the same).  This fact may explain why Balak in yesterday’s passage took Balaam to multiple sites in his attempt to have Balaam curse the Israelites, Balak may have thought that the different sites would fall under a different god to whom Balaam could appeal to curse the Israelites.  In any case, the Israelites suffered a plague of some kind which resulted from the sexual immorality which they practiced with Midianite (and perhaps Moabite) women.  The plague ended when Phinehas (Aaron’s grandson) killed a family leader from the tribe of Simeon and the Midianite woman whom he was having sex with practically in front of the assembly mourning the immorality of the Israelites.   I am somewhat confused by the fact that the passage begins by saying that it was Moabite women who led the Israelite men into sexual immorality, but then God tells Moses that the Israelites should treat the Midianites as enemies because they had deceived the Israelites into worshiping Baal of Peor.  I have read several explanations for this transition, but not of them are satisfying.  Another one occurred to me today.  Perhaps, while it was the Moabite women who began using sex to convince Israelite men to take part in the worship of Baal of Peaor, the Midianite women may have been instrumental in convincing the Israelites that Baal of Peor and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were interchangeable.   There are several places in the Bible where we see indications that the Midianites shared more cultural similarities with the Israelites than other peoples in the area, and that they possessed more knowledge of the God of Abraham than the other peoples as well (Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite priest of God).

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