Israel is camped at Shittim near the Promised Land. Instead of remaining faithful to God, the Israelites begin participating in sexual immorality with Moabite women and worshiping the false god Baal of Peor. God’s anger burns against Israel, and a plague breaks out among the people. Moses commands Israel’s judges to deal with the rebellion. Then an Israelite man openly brings a Midianite woman into the camp, right in front of Moses and the people. Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, takes action and kills both of them. The plague then stops. The chapter ends with God honoring Phinehas and giving him a covenant of peace.
There is a Gospel pattern here. Israel sinned. God’s judgment came. A representative intervened. The plague stopped. Then God established a covenant of peace. The Gospel takes that pattern and is ultimately fulfilled. Humanity sinned. God’s righteous judgment against sin remained. Jesus, the sinless representative, stepped into our place. He bore God’s judgment on the cross. The punishment was satisfied and everyone who trusts in Him receives peace with God. Jesus didn’t die because God stopped caring about sin. He died because God takes sin so seriously that justice had to be satisfied and God loved us enough to satisfy that justice through His own Son. Love y’all! Have a great day!
Numbers 25:1-18
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“While Israel was staying in the Acacia Grove, , the people began to prostitute themselves with the women of Moab. The women invited them to the sacrifices for their gods, and the people ate and bowed in worship to their gods. So Israel aligned itself with Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord so that his burning anger may turn away from Israel.” So Moses told Israel’s judges, “Kill each of the men who aligned themselves with Baal of Peor.” An Israelite man came bringing a Midianite woman to his relatives in the sight of Moses and the whole Israelite community while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand, followed the Israelite man into the tent, and drove it through both the Israelite man and the woman — through her belly. Then the plague on the Israelites was stopped, but those who died in the plague numbered twenty-four thousand. The Lord spoke to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites because he was zealous among them with my zeal, , so that I did not destroy the Israelites in my zeal. Therefore declare: I grant him my covenant of peace. It will be a covenant of perpetual priesthood for him and his future descendants, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.” The name of the slain Israelite man, who was struck dead with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. The name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, a tribal head of a family in Midian. The Lord told Moses, “Attack the Midianites and strike them dead. For they attacked you with the treachery that they used against you in the Peor incident. They did the same in the case involving their sister Cozbi, daughter of the Midianite leader who was killed the day the plague came at Peor.”
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