And Jehovah said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up to Jehovah before the sun, that the fierce anger of Jehovah may be turned away from Israel.
Israel had yoked themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD's anger burned against them. God's answer fell on the leaders, and it fell in public. Why the chiefs? Why in open daylight? And how could such a sentence turn away fierce anger?
The chapters just before this show Israel as God sees them. This chapter shows how Israel behaved.
In the one case we have their perfect standing; in the other, their imperfect state. Balaam's parables give us God's estimate of the first; the javelin of Phinehas, His judgment on the second. God will never reverse His decision about what His people are in standing. But He must judge and discipline them when their ways do not match that standing.
Israel fell, but someone had planned the fall.
Here we have a summary of Balaam's teaching. For the full details we have to turn to Numbers 25:1-9, together with 31:16. Balaam stayed in the background, but he prompted Balak to lay the stumbling block. It lured Israel into idolatry and sexual sin. These two things are always joined together in the heathen world. The first is the most basic of all sins against God; the second is against mankind as well as God.
The collapse started before the idol appeared.
They begin to give up their separation from the nations they live among. This separation is no arbitrary thing. It is a needed separation from the wickedness those nations were sunk in. So a wild and terrible license is the result. Idolatry, the degrading of God, ends (as always) in the degrading of man. "Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel." Judgment goes out. Plague begins its deadly work. To appease this anger, God sentences the heads of the people to be hung up to the LORD before the sun.
Who does God judge first when His own people are seduced into sin?
Before the LORD said, "Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites," He had avenged Himself on the people of Israel. At His command Moses told the judges, "Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor." They carried this out righteively. Moses later used it as a warning to Israel: "Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the LORD your God are all alive today." The New Testament says that judgment must begin at the household of God. And so God began with Israel. To begin at home is the true and right way.
Then one man changed the outcome.
But the zealous act of an Israelite comes before anyone carries out this sentence. The congregation is weeping, gathered before the LORD at the entrance of the tent of meeting. In front of them all, and with no shame, a man of Israel brings a Midianite woman to his tent. Now the zeal of Phinehas wakes: he carries out swift judgment, and God accepts this as atonement. It is God's wrath he executes, and the wrath is turned away from Israel: the plague stops.
Phinehas showed no tenderness at all. There is a time when that is right.
God's glory and Israel's good were what governed the conduct of faithful Phinehas here. It was a critical moment. He felt there was a call for the sternest action. It was no time for false tenderness. There are moments in the history of God's people when tenderness to man becomes unfaithfulness to God. It is of the greatest importance to know when such a moment has come.
- Drift — the fall started when Israel gave up their separation. The idol and the immorality came after, not before.
- Anger — God never changes His view of His people's standing. He still judges and disciplines their ways.
- Sentence — God named the leaders first. The judgment was to be public, before the LORD in open daylight, not hidden.
- Zeal — one man acted for God's glory, God accepted it as atonement, and the plague stopped.
- Home — God dealt with His own people before He avenged them on Midian. Judgment begins at the household of God.
And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Slay every one his men that have joined themselves to Baal-Peor.
Israel has just been blessed from the heights of Moab in words no enemy could reverse, and now, camped in the plains below, the same people are worshipping Moab's gods. Verse 5 is the order Moses passes down: the judges themselves must put to death the men under them who have attached themselves to Baal of Peor — and the question the chapter forces is why God's anger is met here by the sword rather than by prayer.
The sin did not begin with idolatry; it began with a slackened distance from the nations around.
A solemn and yet healthy theme is before us. Again we see, at Shittim, the people of God in their constant tendency to drift away from God. They begin to give up their separation from the nations among whom they live, and since this is no arbitrary thing, but a needed separation from the wickedness those nations were sunk in, a wild and terrible license is the result. Idolatry, the degrading of God, produces (as it always does) the degrading of man.
One writer traces the slide further back, to the ease that followed victory over Sihon and Og.
Israel staying in Shittim were open to the seductions of Moab. The next thing after living where Satan's throne is, is to be at ease there. And then what may not follow?
The phrase the judges are given as their measure describes more than an act; it describes a bond.
It was to Peor that Balaam was called to curse Israel, and where the people were trapped into sacrificing to the gods of Moab, eating things sacrificed to their idols, and committing fornication. So Israel yoked itself to Baal of Peor — it had full fellowship with that demon worship and with the uncleanness that came with it.
Verse 4 and verse 5 are two stages of one sentence, and the second names who must carry it out.
The Lord's judgment of this was immediate and without mercy. He told Moses to take all the leaders of the people and hang those responsible for this corruption. That would turn God's anger away from Israel (v.4). So Moses passed the message to the judges. They were to kill everyone under their authority who had joined in the idol worship of Baal (v.5).
Three earlier times Moses stood between God and a sinning people and begged for them — after the golden calf, after the bad report of the spies, and after Korah's rebellion. Here he asks for nothing. One writer treats this as the key to the chapter, and finds the explanation in how settled the evil had become:
A first key may be found in the word "stayed." It suggests a settled attitude, as opposed to a temporary state. Further, the sins of fornication (whose spiritual counterpart is idolatry) and idolatry have become common practice. Here a different level of sin is reached: a state of established idolatry, resulting in Israel joining itself to Baal of Peor… This time, God's anger is turned away by judgment, not by intercession. A total of 24,000 people died.
The same principle is drawn out from the zeal of Phinehas, who acts in the verses that follow.
God's glory and Israel's good were the objects that ruled the conduct of the faithful Phinehas on this occasion. It was a critical moment. He felt there was a demand for the sternest action. It was no time for false tenderness. There are moments in the history of God's people when tenderness to man becomes unfaithfulness to God; and it is of the greatest importance to be able to recognise such moments.
The order to the judges stands next to Balaam's prophecies, where Israel is seen without a flaw. The two pictures are not in conflict.
In the one case we have their perfect standing; in the other, their imperfect state. Balaam's parables give us God's estimate of the first; the javelin of Phinehas, His judgment on the second. God will never reverse His decision as to what His people are in standing; but He must judge and chasten them when their ways do not match that standing.
Commentators apply the chapter to the church, and are clear that the penalty itself does not carry over — one writer notes plainly that "under grace God does not require any such penalty, though the sin of association with idol worship is just as hateful to Him now as it was then." What does carry over is the zeal:
We see in Phinehas the faithfulness that overcomes. He judges the evil on God's behalf… Paul too in later days showed the holy jealousy that would not tolerate evil in the Church. "I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing… you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."
- Ease — victory was followed by rest, rest by staying, staying by seduction; Israel was open to Moab because they had settled down where they should only have passed through.
- Yoked — the charge is not a lapse but a bond: full fellowship with the worship and the uncleanness that came with it.
- Judgment — where three earlier failures were met by Moses' intercession, this settled idolatry is met by the sword; God's anger is turned away by judgment instead.
- Judges — the sentence is not left to Moses alone; each judge deals with the men under his own charge, so the evil is faced where it actually is.
- Standing — God does not withdraw what He said about His people from the heights; He disciplines them so their state catches up with it.