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

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

Every time I read the account of the Israelites being seduced into worship of Baal of Peor I am not quite sure what to make of it. It seems a bit harsh, but that’s not what I have trouble following.  Basically, there seems to be more going on here than what is written.  So, we are told that the Israelites began worshiping the gods of the Midianites, that God told Moses what to do about it, and that Moses gathered the judges he had appointed to tell them what to do about it.  However, when it describes the man who brought a Midianite woman to his tent it seems to imply that a large group of people had gathered to mourn. Further, after Phinehas killed the Israelite and the woman he had taken to his tent, it tells us that the plague was stopped.

So, it suggests to me that the people had gathered in assembly to ask God what to do about the plague.  Further, the phrasing suggests to me that this assembly went on for several days such that the man who brought the Midianite woman to his tent was fully aware that he was acting in defiance of this assembly. It requires a certain brazenness to openly flout the moral sensibilities of the people in front of them the way that he did.  He was more or less daring them to do anything about his actions, a dare which Phinehas took.  I want to note that the man whom Phinehas killed was a leader of the tribe of Simeon, a role which he thought allowed him to be exempt from the rules applied to others.  I want to make note of one other thing which I have never quite understood, the writer thought we should know the name, and family, of the Israelite man and Midianite woman whom Phinehas killed for their sin.