Numbers 25:4-5

God’s Punishment

25:4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders ¹  of the people, and hang them up ²  before the Lord in broad daylight, ³  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 ⁴  who were joined to Baal-peor.”

Numbers 16:49-50

16:49 Now 14,700 people died in the plague, in addition to those who died in the event with Korah. 16:50 Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and the plague was stopped.

Deuteronomy 4:3-4

4:3 You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, ⁵  how he ⁶  eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor. ⁷  4:4 But you who remained faithful to the Lord your God are still alive to this very day, every one of you.

Deuteronomy 4:1

The Privileges of the Covenant

4:1 Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances ⁸  I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ⁹  is giving you.

Colossians 1:8

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

[25:4]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.

[25:5]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[4:3]  ⁷ tn Or “followed the Baal of Peor” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV), referring to the pagan god Baal.

[4:1]  ⁸ tn These technical Hebrew terms (חֻקִּים [khuqqim] and מִשְׁפָּטִים [mishpatim]) occur repeatedly throughout the Book of Deuteronomy to describe the covenant stipulations to which Israel had been called to subscribe (see, in this chapter alone, vv. 1, 5, 6, 8). The word חֻקִּים derives from the verb חֹק (khoq, “to inscribe; to carve”) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim) from שָׁפַט (shafat, “to judge”). They are virtually synonymous and are used interchangeably in Deuteronomy.

[4:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 31, 37).