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Numbers 25

1Israel stayed at Shittim, and the people began to have illicit sex with the daughters of Moab. 2The women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3Israel yoked itself to Baal of Peor, and Yahweh's anger burned against Israel. 4Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the heads of the people and publicly execute them before Yahweh in the sun, so that Yahweh's burning anger may turn away from Israel.” 5Moses said to Israel's judges, “Each of you must kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” 6Just then a man of the sons of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his brothers, in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand. 8He went after the Israelite man into the inner tent and pierced both of them, the Israelite man and the woman through her abdomen. Then the plague against the sons of Israel was stopped. 9Those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

10Yahweh spoke to Moses: 11“Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the sons of Israel by being zealous with my zeal among them, so that I did not consume the sons of Israel in my zeal. 12Therefore say, ‘Look, I am giving him my covenant of peace. 13It will be for him and his descendants after him a covenant of lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.’” 14The name of the Israelite man who was struck down with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, a leader of an ancestral house of the Simeonites. 15The name of the Midianite woman who was struck down was Cozbi daughter of Zur. He was head of the peoples of an ancestral house in Midian. 16Yahweh spoke to Moses: 17“Treat the Midianites as enemies and strike them down, 18because they treat you as enemies with the schemes they used against you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister, who was struck down on the day of the plague over the matter of Peor.”

Translation notes 4

25:1–3 — Sex and worship. The verb describes illicit sexual conduct and can also evoke unfaithfulness. The following verse explicitly joins the women's invitation, sacrificial eating, and worship of their gods. The account does not specify payment for sex or describe a complete institution of cult prostitution. “Yoked itself” preserves the attachment image in the Hebrew verb.

25:4–8 — Exposure and killing. The command concerning the leaders is severe. “Publicly execute” conveys the punitive force of a verb associated with public hanging or impalement. The exact method and relation of the killing to bodily exposure are disputed; the English does not specify a rope or a stake. The pronoun “them” grammatically follows “the heads of the people”; the text does not explicitly replace it with “the guilty men.” The inner tent and the woman's abdomen are expressed by similar-sounding rare words. The draft retains the bodily violence without adding an explicit description of their sexual position.

25:9–13 — Plague; zeal; peace. The total is 24,000 in this Hebrew text. “Zeal” repeats the same Hebrew root three times in verse 11; “jealousy” is also possible. The narrative credits Phinehas with turning away wrath and making atonement through this act; no animal sacrifice is described here. “Lasting” represents the long-duration word often rendered “everlasting”; the promise concerns Phinehas and his descendants' priesthood.

25:15–18 — Midianite kinship. Zur's titles are compressed and difficult, but identify Cozbi with a leading Midianite family. “Their sister” identifies her with the people; it need not mean that every Midianite was her immediate sibling. The next chapter begins after the plague; the Hebrew and common English chapter divisions differ at that transition.