And they joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead;
Psalm 106 is Israel's own confession of its history, and verse 28 records one of the worst moments: the nation tied itself to a Moabite idol and ate at its feast. Two questions follow — what does it mean to be "yoked" to an idol, and why are its sacrifices called sacrifices "offered to the dead"?
Balaam was hired to curse Israel, and he failed. One writer traces what he tried next.
Before Balaam left the disappointed man who had hired him, he seems to have made a vile suggestion to him. If the LORD could not be turned away from His people, perhaps the people could be turned away from the LORD! Balaam knew enough of God to be sure that if the people of Israel could be tempted into sin, the LORD's hand would come down upon them in judgment… Satan first tries to destroy; then, finding this impossible, he seeks to corrupt, because a pure testimony for God on earth is hateful to him.
The verb is not a word for a passing lapse. Commentators read it as entering fully into everything the idol stood for.
Peor was the place where Balaam was called to curse Israel. There the people fell into the trap of sacrificing to the gods of Moab, eating things sacrificed to their idols, and committing sexual sin. So Israel joined himself to Baal-peor — he had full fellowship with its demon worship and the uncleanness that went with it.
The meal itself made that fellowship. One writer traces the same rule from Israel's altar to an idol's table — and asks where it leaves a Christian.
Those in Israel who ate the sacrifices shared in the altar — they were identified with it. So eating an idol's meat as such identified a person with the idol the meat was offered to. Was this to say that the idol was anything? No. … Should a Christian, then, share in the table of demons? The table was the table of demons, the cup the cup of demons — an important principle for God's assembly.
Commentators differ on the exact force of the phrase. One line of explanation connects it with attempts to contact the dead, a practice Israel was forbidden.
The word NECROMANCER comes from darash methim, "to consult the dead." It occurs only in Deuteronomy 18:11. Isaiah 8:19 implies the same thing: "Should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" And in Psalm 106:28 we read of some who "ate sacrifices offered to the dead," which may have been a preparation for consulting them.
Others keep to the plainer reading: this was idol worship. One dictionary says what stood behind the idols.
The things worshipped may have been unseen objects. They may have had some mystical representation, or they may have been mere idols. But behind all of them were real beings — evil, unclean spirits. So it was morally impossible to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with these demons at the same time.
Nothing in the opening move looked like apostasy. The approach came as an invitation to be neighbourly.
Decline in the history of our souls always comes in steps, and we can trace them here… Balaam's advice is, "Let us all be together; let us be sociable." What a subtle trick of the enemy this is — this appeal to friendship!
The same trap is still set for us. One writer names what leaves us open to it.
Verse 28 notes another matter that called for strict discipline: the question of evil associations, recorded in Numbers 25:1-3. If we despise what God has provided for us, unbelievers and their false gods will easily entice us and draw us under their influence.
The psalm does not stop at the sin. It moves straight on to Phinehas, and one writer presses that on readers today.
Next we have their joining themselves to Baal-peor, and Phinehas, atonement by judgment (see the notes on Numbers 25) to the government of God. God marks that act for all time to come with His emphatic approval. We badly need to keep this in mind in days as lax as these about divine holiness. Phinehas is no less a priest in the place of intercession when he uses the sword of judgment.
- Bait. The trap opened with a friendly invitation — "let us all be together" — not with open rebellion.
- Bond. Being joined to Baal-peor meant full fellowship with its demon worship and the uncleanness that came with it.
- Table. What you eat at a table identifies you with it. The idol is nothing, yet the eating is real fellowship.
- Root. Despising what God had provided left the nation easy prey to unbelievers and their false gods.
- Remedy. Phinehas, a priest, took up the sword of judgment, and God marked his act with approval for all later generations.
And they provoked [him] to anger with their doings; and a plague broke out among them.
Psalm 106 is Israel's own confession of its history. This verse names one of its darkest chapters: what happened at Baal-peor, on the edge of the promised land. Two questions press. What were these "deeds"? And why did judgment fall so fast on God's own people?
This line is not an outsider's accusation. It is the nation owning its own record of failure.
Psalm 106 speaks in words of confession. It shows their failure all the way through: sinning, forgetting, lusting, unbelieving and disobedient. Only infinite mercy and grace could save such a people.
Older translations read "inventions" here. The term carries no sense of clever invention.
In Psalm 99:8 and Psalm 106:29, 39, the word means "doings."
The deeds began with a small loosening, not an open revolt. Israel camped at Shittim, in the plains of Moab, and began to blur the line between itself and the nations nearby.
Again we see, at Shittim, the people of God in their constant liability to drift away from God. They begin to give up their separation from the nations they live among. This separation is no arbitrary rule. 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 it always does) in the degrading of man.
Balaam could not curse Israel. So he changed his method, and the deeds in this verse trace back to that second plan.
God made Balaam speak His own thought about His people: "behold, a people dwelling alone, and not counting itself among the nations!" Yet Balaam was the one who later did his best to mix them with the wicked nation of Moab. He could not curse them. So he learned God's purpose, and as an enemy he sought their downfall by cunning. He traps them into evil associations, and God must deal in judgment. From this we learn what the doctrine of Balaam means. It shows one of the great tricks of the devil, and we must guard against it. He always works to produce mixture where God's clear mind is separation and purity.
The plague was not God abandoning His people. He had told them beforehand what kind of God He was.
They forgot their separate place and sought to join with the nations of Moab and Midian (Numbers 25). God's judgment on them came fast. It declared what He had said before: that He was a jealous God who would have them separate to Himself. And "those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand."
Once it broke out, could anything stop it? The answer lay with God alone.
They were a rebellious people. So God had to deal with them as their ruler, and they had to learn by bitter experience what it is to sin against God. But when they deserved God's wrath, who could turn it aside? Once it fell, who could stop it? … As for the sinners, their condition was helpless. Their only resource was in God. He alone could act in mercy, if He could do so in keeping with His righteousness, and stop the plague once it had already begun. Scripture history records that He could, and He did. … Phinehas stopped the plague when he killed Zimri, a prince of Simeon, along with Cozbi, a daughter of Midian, and so made atonement for Israel. A man had been found who stood up for God by taking sides against offenders in Israel. With that the Lord graciously stopped the judgment.
The same danger reaches readers today, and it often wears a harmless name.
It must shock those who tremble at God's word, the pure in heart who see Him by faith, to see the sinful liberties so often excused as "play." So it is play. But remember: "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." The apostle quotes this Scripture to warn us, right before the warning from the scene at Baal-peor. Those who hold the doctrine of Christ are warned here against the deeds kept alive in the doctrine of Balaam. The saints need to watch against the flesh in the things their own consciences condemn.
- Mixture — The sin did not start with idols. It started when Israel gave up its separate place among the nations around it.
- Method — What a curse could not do, seduction did. The enemy always works to mix what God wants kept separate.
- Measure — God is jealous for a people He calls His own. The plague came fast, and twenty-four thousand died.
- Mediator — The plague stopped when one man took God's side against the sin in the camp.
- Mercy — Israel could not stop what their sin began. Only God could, and He did.
Then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment, and the plague was stayed;
Psalm 106 confesses Israel's long record of failure. Here the people had joined themselves to the idol Baal-peor, a plague was sweeping the camp, and one man's action stopped it.
Two things run through this psalm: Israel's unbroken sin, and the grace that keeps breaking into it.
Psalm 106 is a survey and summary of Israel's moral history, told in the assurance of Jehovah's favour and salvation... Except where sovereign grace worked otherwise, as in verses 12 and 30, their course was one of unbroken sin... Mixed in with the evil is the ever-flowing stream of Jehovah's grace and loving-kindness (verses 8-12, 23, 30, 32, 43-46).
The crisis did not come from an invading army. It came from a trap set after a curse had failed.
Moab displayed this hostility against Israel on the way from Egypt to Canaan. When the travelling people reached the plains of Moab, Balak the king hired Balaam to destroy them by his curses. God's protection defeated this scheme. So Moab tried another way to harm them, on the advice of the wicked prophet. The people were drawn in to join themselves to Baal-peor and to take part in the shameless rites of the gods of Moab. Thousands of them died in the plague that followed.
God was right to send the plague. The question was whether anything could now stop it.
When they deserved divine wrath, who could turn it away? Once it fell, who could stop it?... A plague had broken out among the people, and 24,000 died from it. The action of Phinehas, however, stopped it, when he killed Zimri, a prince of Simeon, with Cozbi, a daughter of Midian, and so made atonement for Israel. Here at last was a man who vindicated God by taking sides against offenders in Israel. Judgment fell on one offender, and so the congregation was spared that day.
Phinehas came from Aaron's family of priests, and the record keeps saying so — at the very moment he acts least like a priest. One word below needs a note: propitiation means wrath turned away.
Notice how, each time Phinehas is named, the record insists on his relation to Eleazar and to Aaron. It is what man would most want to keep out of sight. We understand priestly intercession. We do not usually think of carrying out judgment as priestly work. Yet the connection here is emphasized. "Phinehas" means "mouth of brass," and implies the firmness of the word of God which he here carries out. So "Jesus Christ the righteous" is the title of Him who is our Advocate — righteous, and the "propitiation for our sins."
This was no ordinary day. Everything turned on one man seeing what the moment required.
God's glory and Israel's good were the aims that governed 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. It is vital to be able to recognise such moments. The prompt action of Phinehas saved the whole congregation. It glorified Jehovah among His people, and it completely defeated the enemy's plan. Balaam died among the Midianites under judgment, but Phinehas received an everlasting priesthood.
That everlasting priesthood points past Phinehas to Another.
Phinehas rose up from among the congregation, carried out the judgment, and so made atonement for the people... So also Christ, the true Phinehas, was glorified to be made a High Priest. He was glorified by the One who said to Him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." He did not take this honour to Himself. Instead He learned obedience by the things He suffered. Through that suffering, like Phinehas, He made atonement and turned away wrath... Levi is nothing, and Aaron is nothing, and Phinehas is nothing — Jesus is the Priest. The blessing lies in His hand alone, and He gives it out.
- Ruin. The psalm confesses an almost unbroken record of sin. This verse is one of the rare breaks in it.
- Wrath. Israel deserved the plague. Who could turn such judgment away once it had begun to fall?
- Stand. One man rose from the congregation and acted, and God accepted that act as atonement for the nation.
- Priest. Here judgment is priestly work, not a break from it. The name "Phinehas" means "mouth of brass" — the firmness of God's word.
- Christ. The everlasting priesthood given for that act points beyond Phinehas to Jesus. He turned wrath away by His own suffering, and He alone holds the blessing now.