Numbers 25:11-13

25:11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal ¹  for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. ²  25:12 Therefore, announce: ³  ‘I am going to give ⁴  to him my covenant of peace. ⁵  25:13 So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, ⁶  and has made atonement ⁷  for the Israelites.’”

Numbers 25:1

Israel’s Sin with the Moabite Women

25:1 ⁸ When ⁹  Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality ¹⁰  with the daughters of Moab.

Numbers 16:18

16:18 So everyone took his censer, put fire in it, and set incense on it, and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron.

Acts 7:9-10

7:9 The ¹¹  patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold ¹²  him into Egypt. But ¹³  God was with him, 7:10 and rescued him from all his troubles, and granted him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made ¹⁴  him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

[25:11]  ¹ tn Heb “he was zealous with my zeal.” The repetition of forms for “zeal” in the line stresses the passion of Phinehas. The word “zeal” means a passionate intensity to protect or preserve divine or social institutions.

[25:11]  ² tn The word for “zeal” now occurs a third time. While some English versions translate this word here as “jealousy” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), it carries the force of God’s passionate determination to defend his rights and what is right about the covenant and the community and parallels the “zeal” that Phinehas had just demonstrated.

[25:12]  ³ tn Heb “say.”

[25:12]  ⁴ tn Here too the grammar expresses an imminent future by using the particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the participle נֹתֵן (noten) – “here I am giving,” or “I am about to give.”

[25:12]  ⁵ tn Or “my pledge of friendship” (NAB), or “my pact of friendship” (NJPS). This is the designation of the leadership of the priestly ministry. The terminology is used again in the rebuke of the priests in Mal 2.

[25:13]  ⁶ tn The motif is reiterated here. Phinehas was passionately determined to maintain the rights of his God by stopping the gross sinful perversions.

[25:13]  ⁷ sn The atonement that he made in this passage refers to the killing of the two obviously blatant sinners. By doing this he dispensed with any animal sacrifice, for the sinners themselves died. In Leviticus it was the life of the substitutionary animal that was taken in place of the sinners that made atonement. The point is that sin was punished by death, and so God was free to end the plague and pardon the people. God’s holiness and righteousness have always been every bit as important as God’s mercy and compassion, for without righteousness and holiness mercy and compassion mean nothing.

[25:1]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[7:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “And the.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:9]  ¹² tn The meaning “sell” for the middle voice of ἀποδίδωμι (apodidwmi) is given by BDAG 110 s.v. 5.a. See Gen 37:12-36, esp. v. 28.

[7:9]  ¹³ tn Though the Greek term here is καί (kai), in context this remark is clearly contrastive: Despite the malicious act, God was present and protected Joseph.

[7:10]  ¹⁴ tn Or “appointed.” See Gen 41:41-43.