{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"NUM","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Numbers","commonName":"Numbers","introduction":"The Fourth Book Of Moses(Numbers)\n\nIntroduction\n\nContents, and Arrangement of the Book of Numbers\n\nThe fourth book of Moses, which the Jews call either Vayedabber (וידבר), from the opening word, מספרים (Ἀριθμοί, Numeri, lxx, Vulg.), or פקודים recensiones (= liber recensionum), and to which the heading במדבר (in the wilderness) is given in the Masoretic texts with a more direct reference to its general contents, narrates the guidance of Israel through the desert, from Mount Sinai to the border of Canaan by the river Jordan, and embraces the whole period from the second month of the second year after the exodus from Egypt to the tenth month of the fortieth year.\n\nAs soon as their mode of life in a spiritual point of view had been fully regulated by the laws of Leviticus, the Israelites were to enter upon their journey to Canaan, and take possession of the inheritance promised to their fathers. But just as the way from Goshen to Sinai was a preparation of the chosen people for their reception into the covenant with God, so the way from Sinai to Canaan was also a preparation for the possession of the promised land. On their journey through the wilderness the Israelites were to experience on the one hand the faithful watchfulness and gracious deliverance of their God in every season of distress and danger, as well as the stern severity of the divine judgments upon the despisers of their God, that they might learn thereby to trust entirely in the Lord, and strive after His kingdom alone; and on the other hand they were to receive during their journey the laws and ordinances relating to their civil and political constitution, and thereby to be placed in a condition to form and maintain themselves as a consolidated nation by the side of and in opposition to the earthly kingdoms formed by the nations of the world, and to fulfil the task assigned them by God in the midst of the nations of the earth. These laws, which were given in part at Sinai, in relation to the external and internal organization of the tribes of Israel as the army and the congregation of Jehovah, and in part on various occasions during the march through the desert, as well as after their arrival in the steppes of Moab, on the other side of the Jordan opposite to Jericho, with especial reference to the conquest of Canaan and their settlement there, are not only attached externally to the history itself in the order in which they were given, but are so incorporated internally into the historical narrative, according to their peculiar character and contents, as to form a complete whole, which divides itself into three distinct parts corresponding to the chronological development of the history itself.\n\nThe First part, which extends from ch. 1-10:10, contains the preparations for departing from Sinai, arranged in four groups: - viz., (1) the outward arrangement and classification of the tribes in the camp and on their march, or the numbering and grouping of the twelve tribes around the sanctuary of their God (ch. 1 and 2), and the appointment of the Levites in the place of the first-born of the nation to act as servants of the priests in the sanctuary (ch. 3 and 4); (2) the internal or moral and spiritual organization of the nation as the congregation of the Lord, by laws relating to the maintenance of the cleanliness of the camp, restitution for trespasses, conjugal fidelity, the fulfilment of the vow of the Nazarite, and the priestly blessing (ch. 5 and 6); (3) the closing events at Sinai, viz., the presentation of dedicatory offerings on the part of the tribe princes for the transport of the tabernacle and the altar service (ch. 7), the consecration of the Levites (ch. 8), and the feast of Passover, with an arrangement for a supplementary Passover (Num 9:1-14); (4) the appointment of signs and signals for the march in the desert (ch. 9:5-10:10). In the Second part (Num 10:11-21), the history of the journey is given in the three stages of its progress from Sinai to the heights of Pisgah, near to the Jordan, viz., (1) from their departure from the desert of Sinai (ch. 10:11-36) to their arrival at the desert of Paran, at Kadesh, including the occurrences at Tabeerah, at the graves of lust, and at Hazeroth (ch. 11 and 12), and the events at Kadesh which led God to condemn the people who had revolted against Him to wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the older generation that came out of Egypt had all died (ch. 13 and 14); (2) all that is related of the execution of this divine judgment, extending from the end of the second year to the reassembling of the congregation at Kadesh at the beginning of the fortieth year, is the history of the rebellion and destruction of Korah (ch. 16-17:15), which is preceded by laws relating to the offering of sacrifices after entering Canaan, to the punishment of blasphemers, and to mementos upon the clothes (ch. 15), and followed by the divine institution of the Aaronic priesthood (ch.17:16-28), with directions as to the duties and rights of the priests and Levites (ch. 18), and the law concerning purification from uncleanness arising from contact with the dead (ch. 19); (3) the journey of Israel in the fortieth year from Kadesh to Mount Hor, round Mount Seir, past Moab, and through the territory of the Amorites to the heights of Pisgah, with the defeat of the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and the conquest of their kingdoms in Gilead and Bashan (ch. 20 and 21). In the Third part (ch. 22-36), the events which occurred in the steppes of Moab, on the eastern side of the plain of Jordan, are gathered into five groups, with the laws that were given there, viz., (1) the attempts of the Moabites and Midianites to destroy the people of Israel, first by the force of Balaam's curse, which was turned against his will into a blessing (ch. 22-24), and then by the seduction of the Israelites to idolatry (ch. 25); (2) the fresh numbering of the people according to their families (ch. 26), together with a rule for the inheritance of landed property by daughters (Num 27:1-11), and the appointment of Joshua as the successor of Moses (ch. 27:12-23); (3) laws relating to the sacrifices to be offered by the congregation on the Sabbath and feast days, and to the binding character of vows made by dependent persons (ch. 28-30); (4) the defeat of the Midianites (ch. 31), the division of the land that had been conquered on the other side of the Jordan among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh (ch. 32), and the list of the halting-places (ch. 33:1-49); (5) directions as to the expulsion of the Canaanites, the conquest of Canaan and division of it among the tribes of Israel, the Levites and free cities, and the marriage of heiresses (ch. 33:50-36).\n","order":4,"numberOfChapters":35,"sha256":"c4de29bcffce989240923222e582a3292bec3d964e8f78c8a34c7dbdb55229e2","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/NUM/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"NUM","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":36,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/NUM/36.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"NUM","chapter":36},"totalNumberOfVerses":264},"chapter":{"number":25,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["The Lord had defended His people Israel from Balaam's curse; but the Israelites themselves, instead of keeping the covenant of their God, fell into the snares of heathen seduction (Num 25:1, Num 25:2). Whilst encamped at Shittim, in the steppes of Moab, the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab: they accepted the invitations of the latter to a sacrificial festival of their gods, took part in their sacrificial meals, and even worshipped the gods of the Moabites, and indulged in the licentious worship of Baal-Peor. As the princes of Midian, who were allied to Moab, had been the advisers and assistants of the Moabitish king in the attempt to destroy the Israelites by a curse of God; so now, after the failure of that plan, they were the soul of the new undertaking to weaken Israel and render it harmless, by seducing it to idolatry, and thus leading it into apostasy from its God. But it was Balaam, as is afterwards casually observed in Num 31:16, who first of all gave this advice. This is passed over here, because the point of chief importance in relation to the object of the narrative, was not Balaam's share in the proposal, but the carrying out of the proposal itself. The daughters of Moab, however, also took part in carrying it out, by forming friendly associations with the Israelites, and then inviting them to their sacrificial festival. They only are mentioned in Num 25:1, Num 25:2, as being the daughters of the land. The participation of the Midianites appears first of all in the shameless licentiousness of Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianitish prince, from which we not only see that the princes of Midian performed their part, but obtain an explanation of the reason why the judgment upon the crafty destroyers of Israel was to be executed upon the Midianites.\n(Note: Consequently there is no discrepancy between Num 25:1-5 and Num 25:6-18, to warrant the violent hypothesis of Knobel, that there are two different accounts mixed together in this chapter-An Elohistic account in Num 25:6-18, of which the commencement has been dropped, and a Jehovistic account in Num 25:1-5, of which the latter part has been cut off. The particular points adduced in proof of this fall to the ground, when the history is correctly explained; and such assertions as these, that the name Shittim and the allusion to the judges in Num 25:5, and to the wrath of Jehovah in Num 25:3 and Num 25:4, are foreign to the Elohist, are not proofs, but empty assumptions.)\nShittim, an abbreviation of Abel-Shittim (see at Num 22:1), to which the camp of the Israelites in the steppes of Moab reached (Num 33:49), is mentioned here instead of Arboth-Moab, because it was at this northern point of the camp that the Israelites came into contact with the Moabites, and that the latter invited them to take part in their sacrificial meals; and in Jos 2:1 and Jos 3:1, because it was from this spot that the Israelites commenced the journey to Canaan, as being the nearest to the place where they were to pass through the Jordan. זנה, construed with אל, as in Eze 16:28, signifies to incline to a person, to attach one's self to him, so as to commit fornication. The word applies to carnal and spiritual whoredom. The lust of the flesh induced the Israelites to approach the daughters of Moab, and form acquaintances and friendships with them, in consequence of which they were invited by them \"to the slain-offerings of their gods,\" i.e., to the sacrificial festivals and sacrificial meals, in connection with which they also \"adored their gods,\" i.e., took part in the idolatrous worship connected with the sacrificial festival. These sacrificial meals were celebrated in honour of the Moabitish god Baal-Peor, so that the Israelites joined themselves to him. צמד, in the Niphal, to bind one's self to a person. Baal-Peor is the Baal of Peor, who was worshipped in the city of Beth-Peor (Deu 3:29; Deu 4:46; see at Num 23:28), a Moabitish Priapus, in honour of whom women and virgins prostituted themselves. As the god of war, he was called Chemosh (see at Num 21:29). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["And the anger of the Lord burned against the people, so that Jehovah commanded Moses to fetch the heads of the people, i.e., to assemble them together, and to \"hang up\" the men who had joined themselves to Baal-Peor \"before the Lord against the sun,\" that the anger of God might turn away from Israel. The burning of the wrath of God, which was to be turned away from the people by the punishment of the guilty, as enjoined upon Moses, consisted, as we may see from Num 25:8, Num 25:9, in a plague inflicted upon the nation, which carried off a great number of the people, a sudden death, as in Num 14:37; Num 17:11. הוקיע, from יקע, to be torn apart or torn away (Ges., Winer), refers to the punishment of crucifixion, a mode of capital punishment which was adopted by most of the nations of antiquity (see Winer, bibl. R. W. i. p. 680), and was carried out sometimes by driving a stake into the body, and so impaling them (ἀνασκολοπίζειν), the mode practised by the Assyrians and Persians (Herod. iii. 159, and Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 374, and plate on p. 369), at other times by fastening them to a stake or nailing them to a cross (ἀνασταυροῦν). In the instance before us, however, the idolaters were not impaled or crucified alive, but, as we may see from the word הרגּוּ in Num 25:5, and in accordance with the custom frequently adopted by other nations (see Herzog's Encyclopaedia), they were first of all put to death, and then impaled upon a stake or fastened upon a cross, so that the impaling or crucifixion was only an aggravation of the capital punishment, like the burning in Lev 20:14, and the hanging (תּלה) in Deu 21:22. The rendering adopted by the lxx and Vulgate is παραδειγματίζειν, suspendere, in this passage, and in Sa2 21:6, Sa2 21:9, ἐξηλιάζειν (to expose to the sun), and crucifigere. ליהוה, for Jehovah, as satisfaction for Him, i.e., to appease His wrath. אותם (them) does not refer to the heads of the nation, but to the guilty persons, upon whom the heads of the nation were to pronounce sentence. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["The judges were to put to death every one his men, i.e., such of the evil-doers as belonged to his forum, according to the judicial arrangements instituted in Ex 18. This command of Moses to the judges was not carried out, however, because the matter took a different turn. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Whilst the heads of the people were deliberating on the subject, and the whole congregation was assembled before the tabernacle, weeping on account of the divine wrath, there came an Israelite, a prince of the tribe of Simeon, who brought a Midianitish woman, the daughter of a Midianitish chief (Num 25:14), to his brethren, i.e., into the camp of the Israelites, before the eyes of Moses and all the congregation, to commit adultery with her in his tent. This shameless wickedness, in which the depth of the corruption that had penetrated into the congregation came to light, inflamed the zeal of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the high priest, to such an extent, that he seized a spear, and rushing into the tent of the adulterer, pierced both of them through in the very act. הקּבּה, lit., the arched, or arch, is applied here to the inner or hinder division of the tent, the sleeping-room and women's room in the larger tents of the upper classes. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Through this judgment, which was executed by Phinehas with holy zeal upon the daring sinners, the plague was restrained, so that it came to an end. The example which Phinehas had made of these sinners was an act of intercession, by which the high priest appeased the wrath of God, and averted the judgment of destruction from the whole congregation (\"he was zealous for his God,\" ויכפּר, Num 25:13). The thought upon which this expression is founded is, that the punishment which was inflicted as a purifying chastisement served as a \"covering\" against the exterminating judgment (see Herzog's Cyclopaedia).\n(Note: Upon this act of Phinehas, and the similar examples of Samuel (Sa1 15:33) and Mattathias (1 Macc. 2:24), the later Jews erected the so-called \"zealot right,\" jus zelotarum, according to which any one, even though not qualified by his official position, possessed the right, in cases of any daring contempt of the theocratic institutions, or any daring violation of the honour of God, to proceed with vengeance against the criminals. (See Salden, otia theol. pp. 609ff., and Buddeus, de jure zelotarum apud Hebr. 1699, and in Oelrich's collect. T. i. Diss. 5.) The stoning of Stephen furnishes an example of this.)\nNum 25:9\nTwenty-four thousand men were killed by this plague. The Apostle Paul deviates from this statement in Co1 10:8, and gives the number of those that fell as twenty-three thousand, probably from a traditional interpretation of the schools of the scribes, according to which a thousand were deducted from the twenty-four thousand who perished, as being the number of those who were hanged by the judges, so that only twenty-three thousand would be killed by the plague; and it is to these alone that Paul refers. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["For this act of divine zeal the eternal possession of the priesthood was promised to Phinehas and his posterity as Jehovah's covenant of peace. בּקנאו, by displaying my zeal in the midst of them (viz., the Israelites). קנאתי is not \"zeal for me,\" but \"my zeal,\" the zeal of Jehovah with which Phinehas was filled, and impelled to put the daring sinners to death. By doing this he had averted destruction from the Israelites, and restrained the working of Jehovah's zeal, which had manifested itself in the plague. \"I gave him my covenant of peace\" (the suffix is attached to the governing noun, as in Lev 6:3). בּרית נתן, as in Gen 17:2, to give, i.e., to fulfil the covenant, to grant what was promised in the covenant. The covenant granted to Phinehas consisted in the fact, that an \"eternal priesthood\" (i.e., the eternal possession of the priesthood) was secured to him, not for himself alone, but for his descendants also, as a covenant, i.e., in a covenant, or irrevocable form, since God never breaks a covenant that He has made. In accordance with this promise, the high-priesthood which passed from Eleazar to Phinehas (Jdg 20:28) continued in his family, with the exception of a brief interruption in Eli's days (see at 1 Sam 1-3 and Sa1 14:3), until the time of the last gradual dissolution of the Jewish state through the tyranny of Herod and his successors (see my Archologie, 38). - In Num 25:14, Num 25:15, the names of the two daring sinners are given. The father of Cozbi, the Midianitish princess, was named Zur, and is described here as \"head of the tribes (אמּות, see at Gen 25:16) of a father's house in Midian,\" i.e., as the head of several of the Midianitish tribes that were descended from one tribe-father; in Num 31:8, however, he is described as a king, and classed among the five kings of Midian who were slain by the Israelites. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["The Lord now commanded Moses to show hostility (צרר to the Midianites, and smite them, on account of the stratagem which they had practised upon the Israelites by tempting them to idolatry, \"in order that the practical zeal of Phinehas against sin, by which expiation had been made for the guilt, might be adopted by all the nation\" (Baumgarten). The inf. abs. צרור, instead of the imperative, as in Exo 20:8, etc. על־דּברף, in consideration of Peor, and indeed, or especially, in consideration of Cozbi. The repetition is emphatic. The wickedness of the Midianites culminated in the shameless wantonness of Cozbi the Midianitish princess. \"Their sister,\" i.e., one of the members of their tribe. - The 19th verse belongs to the following chapter, and forms the introduction to Num 26:1.\n(Note: In the English version this division is adopted. - Tr.) \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/NUM/25.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"NUM","chapter":25},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/NUM/26.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"NUM","chapter":26},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/NUM/24.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"NUM","chapter":24},"numberOfVerses":7}