Numbers 25:1-9

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.

God’s Punishment

25:4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders ⁷  of the people, and hang them up ⁸  before the Lord in broad daylight, ⁹  so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.” 25:5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you must execute those of his men ¹⁰  who were joined to Baal-peor.”

25:6 Just then ¹¹  one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers ¹²  a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of ¹³  the whole community of the Israelites, while they ¹⁴  were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 25:7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, ¹⁵  he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand, 25:8 and went after the Israelite man into the tent ¹⁶  and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. ¹⁷  So the plague was stopped from the Israelites. ¹⁸  25:9 Those that died in the plague were 24,000.

Exodus 25:5

25:5 ram skins dyed red, ¹⁹  fine leather, ²⁰  acacia ²¹  wood,

Exodus 25:10

The Ark of the Covenant

25:10 ²² “They are to make an ark ²³  of acacia wood – its length is to be three feet nine inches, its width two feet three inches, and its height two feet three inches. ²⁴ 

Exodus 25:23

The Table for the Bread of the Presence

25:23 ²⁵ “You are to make a table of acacia wood; its length is to be three feet, its width one foot six inches, and its height two feet three inches.

Joshua 2:1

Joshua Sends Spies into the Land

2:1 Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: ²⁶  “Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho.” ²⁷  They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there. ²⁸ 

[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.

[25:4]  ⁷ sn The meaning must be the leaders behind the apostasy, for they would now be arrested. They were responsible for the tribes’ conformity to the Law, but here they had not only failed in their duty, but had participated. The leaders were executed; the rest of the guilty died by the plague.

[25:4]  ⁸ sn The leaders who were guilty were commanded by God to be publicly exposed by hanging, probably a reference to impaling, but possibly some other form of harsh punishment. The point was that the swaying of their executed bodies would be a startling warning for any who so blatantly set the Law aside and indulged in apostasy through pagan sexual orgies.

[25:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.

[25:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “slay – a man his men.” The imperative is plural, and so “man” is to be taken collectively as “each of you men.”

[25:6]  ¹¹ tn The verse begins with the deictic particle וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh), pointing out the action that was taking place. It stresses the immediacy of the action to the reader.

[25:6]  ¹² tn Or “to his family”; or “to his clan.”

[25:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of.”

[25:6]  ¹⁴ tn The vav (ו) at the beginning of the clause is a disjunctive because it is prefixed to the nonverbal form. In this context it is best interpreted as a circumstantial clause, stressing that this happened “while” people were weeping over the sin.

[25:7]  ¹⁵ tn The first clause is subordinated to the second because both begin with the preterite verbal form, and there is clearly a logical and/or chronological sequence involved.

[25:8]  ¹⁶ tn The word קֻבָּה (qubbah) seems to refer to the innermost part of the family tent. Some suggest it was in the tabernacle area, but that is unlikely. S. C. Reif argues for a private tent shrine (“What Enraged Phinehas? A Study of Numbers 25:8,” JBL 90 [1971]: 200-206).

[25:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he thrust the two of them the Israelite man and the woman to her belly [lower abdomen].” Reif notes the similarity of the word with the previous “inner tent,” and suggests that it means Phinehas stabbed her in her shrine tent, where she was being set up as some sort of priestess or cult leader. Phinehas put a quick end to their sexual immorality while they were in the act.

[25:8]  ¹⁸ sn Phinehas saw all this as part of the pagan sexual ritual that was defiling the camp. He had seen that the Lord himself had had the guilty put to death. And there was already some plague breaking out in the camp that had to be stopped. And so in his zeal he dramatically put an end to this incident, that served to stop the rest and end the plague.

[25:5]  ¹⁹ sn W. C. Kaiser compares this to morocco leather (“Exodus,” EBC 2:453); it was skin that had all the wool removed and then was prepared as leather and dyed red. N. M. Sarna, on the other hand, comments, “The technique of leather production is never described [in ancient Hebrew texts]. Hence, it is unclear whether Hebrew me’oddamim (מְאָדָּמִים), literally ‘made red,’ refers to the tanning or dyeing process” (Exodus [JPSTC], 157).

[25:5]  ²⁰ tn The meaning of the word תְּחָשִׁים (tÿkhashim) is debated. The Arabic tuhas or duhas is a dolphin, and so some think a sea animal is meant – something like a dolphin or porpoise (cf. NASB; ASV “sealskins”; NIV “hides of sea cows”). Porpoises are common in the Red Sea; their skins are used for clothing by the bedouin. The word has also been connected to an Egyptian word for “leather” (ths); see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 265. Some variation of this is followed by NRSV (“fine leather”) and NLT (“fine goatskin leather”). Another suggestion connects this word to an Akkadian one that describes a precious stone that is yellow or ornge and also leather died with the color of this stone (N. M. Sarna, Exodus [JPSTC], 157-58).

[25:5]  ²¹ sn The wood of the acacia is darker and harder than oak, and so very durable.

[25:10]  ²² sn This section begins with the ark, the most sacred and important object of Israel’s worship. Verses 10-15 provide the instructions for it, v. 16 has the placement of the Law in it, vv. 17-21 cover the mercy lid, and v. 22 the meeting above it. The point of this item in the tabernacle is to underscore the focus: the covenant people must always have God’s holy standard before them as they draw near to worship. A study of this would focus on God’s nature (he is a God of order, precision, and perfection), on the usefulness of this item for worship, and on the typology intended.

[25:10]  ²³ tn The word “ark” has long been used by English translations to render אָרוֹן (’aron), the word used for the wooden “box,” or “chest,” made by Noah in which to escape the flood and by the Israelites to furnish the tabernacle.

[25:10]  ²⁴ tn The size is two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. The size in feet and inches is estimated on the assumption that the cubit is 18 inches (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 267).

[25:23]  ²⁵ sn The Table of the Bread of the Presence (Tyndale’s translation, “Shewbread,” was used in KJV and influenced ASV, NAB) was to be a standing acknowledgment that Yahweh was the giver of daily bread. It was called the “presence-bread” because it was set out in his presence. The theology of this is that God provides, and the practice of this is that the people must provide for constant thanks. So if the ark speaks of communion through atonement, the table speaks of dedicatory gratitude.

[2:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Joshua, son of Nun, sent from Shittim two men, spies, secretly, saying.”

[2:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “go, see the land, and Jericho.”

[2:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they went and entered the house of a woman, a prostitute, and her name was Rahab, and they slept there.”