Numbers 25:1-3

Israel’s Sin with the Moabite Women

25:1 ¹ When ²  Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality ³  with the daughters of Moab. 25:2 These women invited ⁴  the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods. ⁵  25:3 When Israel joined themselves to Baal-peor, ⁶  the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel.

Numbers 25:5

25:5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you must execute those of his men ⁷  who were joined to Baal-peor.”

Numbers 31:16

31:16 Look, these people through the counsel of Balaam caused the Israelites to act treacherously against the Lord in the matter of Peor – which resulted in the plague among the community of the Lord!

Deuteronomy 4:3

4:3 You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, ⁸  how he ⁹  eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 32:17

32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,

to gods they had not known;

to new gods who had recently come along,

gods your ancestors ¹¹  had not known about.

Joshua 22:17

22:17 The sin we committed at Peor was bad enough. To this very day we have not purified ourselves; it even brought a plague on the community of the Lord. ¹² 

Hosea 9:10

9:10 When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness.

I viewed your ancestors ¹³  like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season.

Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame –

they became as detestable as what they loved.

Revelation 2:14

2:14 But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who follow the teaching of Balaam, ¹⁴  who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block ¹⁵  before the people ¹⁶  of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. ¹⁷ 

[25:1]  ¹ 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.

[25:1]  ² 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.

[25:1]  ³ 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.

[25:2]  ⁴ 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.

[25:2]  ⁵ 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.

[25:3]  ⁶ 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.

[25:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “slay – a man his men.” The imperative is plural, and so “man” is to be taken collectively as “each of you men.”

[4:3]  ⁸ tc The LXX and Syriac read “to Baal Peor,” that is, the god worshiped at that place; see note on the name “Beth Peor” in Deut 3:29.

[4:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[4:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “followed the Baal of Peor” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV), referring to the pagan god Baal.

[32:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “your fathers.”

[22:17]  ¹² tn Heb “Was the sin of Peor too insignificant for us, from which we have not made purification to this day? And there was a plague in the assembly of the Lord.”

[9:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “fathers”; a number of more recent English versions use the more general “ancestors” here.

[2:14]  ¹⁴ sn See Num 22-24; 31:16.

[2:14]  ¹⁵ tn That is, a cause for sinning. An alternate translation is “who instructed Balak to cause the people of Israel to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols…”

[2:14]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “sons,” but the expression υἱοὶ ᾿Ισραήλ (Juioi Israhl) is an idiom for the people of Israel as an ethnic entity (see L&N 11.58).

[2:14]  ¹⁷ tn Due to the actual events in the OT (Num 22-24; 31:16), πορνεῦσαι (porneusai) is taken to mean “sexual immorality.” BDAG 854 s.v. πορνεύω 1 states, “engage in illicit sex, to fornicate, to whore…W. φαγεῖν εἰδωλόθυτα ‘eat meat offered to idols’ Rv 2:14, 20.”