I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 25-26.

Shortly after the failure of Balak’s attempt to get Balaam to curse the Israelites, Moabite women began having sex with Israelite men and inviting them to take part in the sacrifices to Baal-Peor.  This resulted in a plague among the Israelites, likely a sexually transmitted disease.   While Moses was discussing with the leaders of Israel how to address this issue, a man brought a Midianite woman to his tent, in front of the gathered people, to have sex with her.  Aaron’s grandson, Phinehas, grabbed a spear and killed both the man and the woman, ending the practice.  I want to point out how sexual desire, and sexual immorality, was used to seduce Israelite men into idolatry, resulting in disease being spread among the Israelites.  There are good reasons for the limitations of sexual behavior to marriage, both for our spiritual and physical health.

There are a couple of interesting points here.  First, “peor” was both the name of the mountain the Moabites primarily worshiped at and the Hebrew word for “open”.  The literal translation of Baal-Peor would be “Lord of the Hole” (or something similar).  Another one is that many commentators struggle to explain why the focus of the passage goes from Moabites to Middianites, more or less in the middle.  It was Balak, king of Moab who tried to have Balaam curse the Israelites and it was Moabite women who initially seduced Israelite men into worshiping Baal-Peor.  However, God instructed the Israelites to attack and destroy the Midianites.  Well, Moses had spent time among Midianites and had married one, which suggests that the Israelites would have perceived the Midianites as fellow worshipers of God.  Another point worth noting is that before Balak sent for Balaam he gathered the elders of the Midianites for consultation.

Expanding on why the Israelites attacked and attempted to destroy the Midianites here gets a little involved.  Consider the idea I keep referring back to that there were other people besides the Israelites who were familiar with the creation story they followed.  The Midianites were one of those people, being descended from Abraham.  So, it may have been the Midianites who convinced the Israelites that the worship of Baal-Peor was just another variant of worshiping God.  Related to that is the fact that in the languages spoken by the others in the region, Baal and El had similar meanings.  El is a word which was used from time to time in the Bible to refer to God.  My point in all of this is that the Israelites likely felt more betrayed by the actions of the Midianites to seduce them into idol worship than the same actions by the Moabites.  The Midianites had the background and understanding to KNOW that the worship of Baal-Peor was incompatible with the worship of God, while the Moabites may have genuinely believed them to be interchangeable.