25:1 3 When 4 Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality 5 with the daughters of Moab. 25:2 These women invited 6 the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 7 25:3 When Israel joined themselves to Baal-peor, 8 the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel.
2:15 Then Rahab 17 let them down by a rope 18 through the window. (Her 19 house was built as part of the city wall; she lived in the wall.) 20
1 tn The construction is the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) suffixed followed by the active participle. This is the futur instans use of the participle, to express something that is about to happen: “I am about to go.”
2 tn Heb “in the latter days.” For more on this expression, see E. Lipinski, “באחרית הימים dans les textes préexiliques,” VT 20 (1970): 445-50.
3 sn Chapter 25 tells of Israel’s sins on the steppes of Moab, and God’s punishment. In the overall plan of the book, here we have another possible threat to God’s program, although here it comes from within the camp (Balaam was the threat from without). If the Moabites could not defeat them one way, they would try another. The chapter has three parts: fornication (vv. 1-3), God’s punishment (vv. 4-9), and aftermath (vv. 10-18). See further G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 105-21; and S. C. Reif, “What Enraged Phinehas? A Study of Numbers 25:8,” JBL 90 (1971): 200-206.
4 tn This first preterite is subordinated to the next as a temporal clause; it is not giving a parallel action, but the setting for the event.
5 sn The account apparently means that the men were having sex with the Moabite women. Why the men submitted to such a temptation at this point is hard to say. It may be that as military heroes the men took liberties with the women of occupied territories.
6 tn The verb simply says “they called,” but it is a feminine plural. And so the women who engaged in immoral acts with Hebrew men invited them to their temple ritual.
7 sn What Israel experienced here was some of the debased ritual practices of the Canaanite people. The act of prostrating themselves before the pagan deities was probably participation in a fertility ritual, nothing short of cultic prostitution. This was a blatant disregard of the covenant and the Law. If something were not done, the nation would have destroyed itself.
8 tn The verb is “yoked” to Baal-peor. The word is unusual, and may suggest the physical, ritual participation described below. It certainly shows that they acknowledge the reality of the local god.
9 sn Here again we see that there was no unified empire, but Midianite tribal groups.
10 sn And what was Balaam doing among the Midianites? The implication is strong. This pagan diviner had to submit to the revealed will of God in the oracles, but he nonetheless could be hired. He had been a part of the attempt to destroy Israel that failed; he then apparently became part of the plan, if not the adviser, to destroy them with sexual immorality and pagan ritual.
11 tn Heb “arose and fought.”
12 tn Heb “sent and called.”
13 tn Or “to curse.”
14 tn Heb “your fathers.”
15 tn Heb “the river,” referring to the Euphrates. This has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Or “served.”
17 tn Heb “she”; the referent (Rahab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tc The phrase “by a rope” is omitted in the LXX. It may be a later clarifying addition. If original, the omission in the LXX is likely due to an error of homoioarcton. A scribe’s or translator’s eye could have jumped from the initial ב (bet) in the phrase בַּחֶבֶל (bakhevel, “with a rope”) to the initial ב on the immediately following בְּעַד (bÿ’ad, “through”) and accidentally omitted the intervening letters.
19 tn Heb “For her house.”
20 tc These explanatory statements are omitted in the LXX and probably represent a later scribal addition.
21 tn Or “they have gone the way of Cain.”
22 tn Grk “for wages.”
23 tn The verb ἐκχέω (ekcew) normally means “pour out.” Here, in the passive, it occasionally has a reflexive idea, as BDAG 312 s.v. 3. suggests (with extra-biblical examples).
24 tn Or “in.”
25 tn Grk “and.” See note on “perish” later in this verse.
26 tn The three verbs in this verse are all aorist indicative (“have gone down,” “have abandoned,” “have perished”). Although the first and second could be considered constative or ingressive, the last is almost surely proleptic (referring to the certainty of their future judgment). Although it may seem odd that a proleptic aorist is so casually connected to other aorists with a different syntactical force, it is not unparalleled (cf. Rom 8:30).