Numbers 25:1-9
The spear at Peor
Israel is dying by the thousand and the leaders are being hanged in the sun. One man brings a woman into the camp in full view, and Phinehas rises up from the congregation and follows.
People of the Bible
Phinehas
Ended a plague with a spear, and years later ended a civil war by asking a question first.
Phinehas is the grandson of Aaron, a priest in a generation that has just watched twenty-four thousand people die at Peor. While the assembly is weeping at the door of the tent, a man walks past them all with a Midianite woman. Phinehas takes a spear and follows them in, and the plague stops. He is given a covenant of peace, which is a strange thing to be given for that act, and the text says he was zealous with God’s own zeal and made atonement.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Phinehas
- 01
- 02
Numbers 25:10-13
A covenant of peace
He is given the priesthood for his descendants forever, and the words used are peace and atonement. The reward and the deed are held together without comment.
- 03
Joshua 22:9-34
What is this altar
The tribes across the Jordan build something huge and the rest assemble to fight. Phinehas goes with ten chiefs, asks what it means, is told it is a witness and not for sacrifice, and the war does not happen.
Why it matters
Phinehas is hard, and the Bible does not soften him. What it does do is show him twice. The second time, the eastern tribes build a great altar by the Jordan and the rest of Israel gathers for war. Phinehas is sent ahead, and instead of striking he asks them what they have done, listens to the answer, and finds it good. The same man is remembered for both, and the second scene is the one that keeps the nation whole.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
