Phinehas: Zealous for God
by Daniel R. Vess
The Bible is filled with little known and oft forgotten heroes. Perhaps, Phinehas the son of Aaron is one of these great men of faith. As Job is known for his patience and Jabez for his prayer, may we never forget to emulate the zeal of Phinehas.
The account of Phinehas in Numbers is not the only place in the Bible which tells of his heroism. Ezra traced his ancestry back to that of Phinehas. According to Psalm 106:28-31 the righteousness of Phinehas’faithful act placed him on a pedestal next to Abraham. Even extra Biblical writings among the Jews named him as a great hero worth emulating as a generation of Jews opposed their foreign conqueror many centuries after his death. He is not an unsung hero among the Jews (Eccles. 45:23,24; 1 Macc. 2:26.) In fact, he is even commemorated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church on September 2.
A little bit of background to the story of Phinehas will help demonstrate why he was such a much needed hero of his day. On the road to the Promise Land Israel was fraught with detours and wrong turns. They suffered from discontent (11:1-6); damaged relationships within a leading family (12:1); jealousy (12:23); fear (14:31); rebellion (14:4,10); disobedience (14:40-45); rivalry (16:1-3); disloyalty (16:41-17:5); quarreling (20:3-5); irreverence (21:4-5); etc. In spite of all this God was with them and they were able to score some impressive victories over their enemies and God’s. They were victorious over the kings: Sihon and Og (21:25,35). Success in a few battles does not equal final victory and even overcoming the spiritual foe. Despite America’s victories over Germany starting with D-Day, General George Patton warned in December 1944, “we can still lose this war.” Israel had lost some key leaders. Both Aaron and Miriam were now dead. The king of Moab just got through trying to curse Israel using Balaam in the “God Wars.”King Balak’s hiring of the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites backfired. Balaam is commanded by God to blesses the Israelites instead of curse them. Balaam returned home in defeat (24:25) but not for long.
The Israelites are camped at Shittim as the story of Phinehas begins. According to Numbers 33:49 it was the last stopping place of the people before they crossed into Canaan. It is a site about three miles east of the Jordan and five miles north of the Dead Sea.
Executioner-Priest, Numbers 25:1-18
The prophet Balaam has a plan to get the money purse offered by Balak. His plan is to teach Balak how to cast a stumbling block before Israel. Balaam counseled the Midianites and Moabites to use their women to incite Israelites to rebellion against the Lord (31:16) and to do this through the worship of Baal. The plan was to be nice to God’s people. To invite them to their parties. To seduce them with their woman, and then to have them worship their gods. It is sort of a Trojan Horse approach.
Balaam is a prophet for profit and a paradigm of later false teachers who are immoral and greedy. Jude refers to the “error of Balaam” (Jude 1:11). John mentions the teachings of Balaam among the church at Thyatira in Revelation 2:14: “But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.”
Notice the snowball effect upon the Israelites as one sin led to another. They ate. They bowed. They joined. The same three sins are found in Exodus 32 when the Israelites ate and drank, bowed down to a golden calf and rose up to “play,” that is, commit sexual immorality. The term “joined” is the same idea as a fornicator is “joined to an harlot” in 1 Corinthians 6:16. The Hebrews word zana is translated “commit sexual immorality” or “play the harlot” and used to describe common prostitution. The feasts honoring Baal led to bowing down in worship, and then joining with the foreign women in fornication as a form of worship to Baal. A close connection is seen between joining a man and woman in adultery and the spiritual adultery of joining Baal in worship instead of being faithful to God. This is the first occurrence of the god Baal in the Hebrew Bible. James warns the saints in James 4:2-5 of the dangers of spiritual adultery.
As a result of their sins, “the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel” (25:3). Israelites were taught that trifling with sin has lethal consequences. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord, out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.’ So Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Every one of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor’” (25:4,5). For one’s body to be left out and unburied as an added insult and used extensively throughout ancient times to further disgrace the dead and warn others (Gen. 40:19,22; Josh. 8:29; 10:26; 2 Sam. 4:12; Est. 2:23; 7:10; 1 Sam. 31:10,12; 2 Sam. 21;12). It was also a divine pointed curse upon the wicked (Deut. 21:22-23; see Gal. 3:13).
Moses passed on God’s instructions to hang the offenders. Paul mentions this day to warn the brethren at Corinth “nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell” (1 Cor. 10:8). Although God is not killing mankind off by the thousands today, He still deserves, expects, and demands Christians to be faithful.
The reaction of the righteous in Israel can be seen by those who gathered around the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and bitterly wept over the situation. Suddenly, an Israelite brings a Midianite woman before the sight of Moses and the godly men and women and took her into his family tent. This was not just any Israelite but a leader. His open rebellion and licentiousness would further provoke God’s anger and caused righteous indignation in another leader of God’s people.
Being the son of Aaron, Phinehas is a priest of God and nephew of Moses. Seeing his neighbor take a Midianite in his tent to commit fornication, he runs into the tent with a spear and runs them through. To be able to kill both at the same time with a spear makes it crystal clear what the two were up to. Phinehas was not a vigilante or murder in the killing of these two. He was being obedient to God’s Word. The penalty for such idolatrous and immoral practice was death. Today, Phinehas would be considered an intolerant and meddlesome fanatic. This is not to say Christians must take matters of capital punishment into their own hands. God has ordained the secular governemnts of the world to punish evil doers (Rom. 13:1-4).
The zeal of Phinehas saved the day. God’s wrath was turned back and other saved from the plague. God Himself attributed this to Phinehas: “because he was zealous with My zeal among them” (25:11). God is very zealous for His own honor and glory. Zeal is an extremely intense combination of passion and jealousy.
When the disciples of Jesus saw Him cleansing the Temple they “remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17). In his zeal for God Jesus was cleanse the Temple again at the end of Him ministry.
Because of His zeal God blesses Phinehas with several blessings. First, God said he would “I give to him My covenant of peace” (25:12). This would be passed down even to “his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood” (25:13). God’s priests in Christ are blessed with everlasting blessing if they to serve him with zeal.
The dead offenders were Zimri, a prince in Israel, and Cozbi, was the daughter of a prince , so perhaps they thought their social status gave them the right. Zimri and Phinehas are in contrast as one is “the son of a leading Simeonite family, the other the grandson of Aaron. One illustrates blatant insubordination, the other unconditional obedience” (Motyer 231).
Not only does God plan to reward Phinehas, He plans retribution upon the Midianites (25:16-18). Whereas Moab was related to Israel through Abraham’s nephew Lot and the Midianites were the allies of Moab (22:4,7) . Midian was the son of Abraham and Keturah. Moses’ wife Zipporah was from a branch of the Midianites. God’s longsuffering with these wicked nations were coming to and end (Gen. 15:16). Phinehas would be employed by God in the future to zealously carry out this retribution.
The zeal of Phinehas to be continued in next article.