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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
25:1-18 Apostasy at Peor. Balaam had delivered his final oracles at Peor (23:28). Now, at the foot of the mountain where Balaam had been prophesying, the Israelites start "whoring with the daughters of Moab" and sacrificing to their gods. The juxtaposition could not be more stark between the most exuberant visions of Israel's future and their present blatant infidelity to the law and the covenant. But this sort of inconsistency was not new. The same thing had happened at Sinai: while Moses was being given instructions on building the tabernacle, the people were making and worshiping the golden calf (Exodus 25-34). And at Kadesh the wonderful prospect of entry to the land was dashed by national unbelief (Numbers 13-14). These earlier episodes are alluded to here in ch. 25, and various details in this apostasy parallel earlier ones (e.g., the plagues, the consecration of the Levites/priest). What is missing here is the threat to destroy the whole nation or delay the entry to Canaan. God's plan is going to be implemented despite Israel's unfaithfulness. As Deut. 9:5 puts it, "Not because of your righteousness . . . are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations . . . that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers."
25:1 Shittim was the final encampment before the Israelites crossed the Jordan (see Josh. 2:1). This is possibly Tell el-Hammam, about
25:1-2 Whore . . . sacrifices of their gods . . . ate echoes the terms used in Ex. 34:15-16. The people were breaking the first commandment given after the golden calf apostasy.
25:3 Baal was the main Canaanite fertility god, whom Israel was constantly tempted to worship.
25:4-5 the fierce anger of the Lord. Drastic action (execution) was the only possible way to obliterate the perversion of Baal worship (v. 2) and the accompanying prostitution with the daughters of Moab (v. 1), and so to assuage the Lord's fierce anger. hang them in the sun. This most likely refers to the ancient Near Eastern practice of impaling dead bodies on a stick after execution for heinous crimes, as a form of disgrace (rather than burying the bodies) and as a public warning to all who would be tempted to engage in such perversion themselves.
25:6 Publicly flouting this ban on liaisons with foreign women, a chief's son (v. 14) takes a Midianite princess (v. 15) into a tent near the tabernacle. Moabites and Midianites collaborated in hiring Balaam (22:4, 7), and evidently in the seduction of Israel also.
25:7-8 Phinehas, the high priest's son, goes after the chief's son and the princess (see v. 6) and executes them on the spot, perhaps in the very act of intercourse. This punishment without waiting for a trial corresponds to the Levites' slaughter of the golden calf worshipers (Ex. 32:25-28). In the case of the Levites, this led to their being set apart as the priestly tribe (Ex. 32:29). For his part, Phinehas was rewarded with heading a permanent priestly dynasty (Num. 25:10-13). Phinehas's grandfather Aaron had halted a plague by offering incense (16:46-50).
25:9 Though the plague was stopped by Phinehas's intervention (its start is hinted at in v. 3), still a huge number died. This parallels the plagues at Sinai and Kadesh (Ex. 32:35; Num. 14:37; 16:49).
25:16-18 The ongoing struggle with Midian is reported in ch. 31 and Judges 6-8.
