Phinehas, the Zealot

Numbers 25 is the continuation of the Balaam, the prophet's, story in chapters 21-24 according to Numbers 31:8-18. As a result of Balaam's failure to curse Israel for Balaak, the king, he devised another plan to bring  upon a downfall of Israel: seducing them with Moabite women. By this, Israel fell into sexual immorality; but not only that, Israel began to eat at Moabite worships, and began to bow down to the Moabite Gods! Completely cheating on God!

Therefore, God's anger was kindled and He became zealous to kill the leaders of Israel. But, one of the men of Israel was bold enough to bring a Midianite woman in front of Israel while they were repenting before God!

This is where Phinehas comes in, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron. (yup, he's more than a pointy nosed cartoon on Disney) Phinehas sees this man's insensitivity to God's broken heart and his anger grew just like God's; his zeal grew like God's zeal and he followed the man into the tent and pierced the man and the woman with a spear!

Crazy? Would you and I be crazy to do this? Is this something we ought to do at church and in our communities today, to kill the men who claim to be Christian but really despise God with how they live? What was God thinking?



Well, God says Phinehas turned away God's anger! He was pleased and God even made a covenant that Phinehas's descendants will have a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for God's honor. So, God blessed Israel and stopped the curse because of Phinehas.

Why did God honor Phinehas? Well, did Phinehas do anything wrong...or right? Did he commit murder? No. Phinehas was obeying God.

Today, you and I will very unlikely experience God saying "Kill the CHURCH leaders." Instead, if there're any sins in the church, we address it directly to help our brothers and sisters to stop sinning. And if there are unbelievers in the church who call themselves Christians, we're to kick them out (Matthew 18) and treat them as evil (because they lead people away from God in God's name...) So, we ought to be zealous to REMOVE SIN from God's people.

We learn of God's character in this passage. He is someone who loves innocence and hates wickedness; he loves faithfulness but hates adultery; and he will protect the innocent from evil, even if it means destroying it. In this case, Israel (and the man) had turned away from God into sin: sexual AND spiritual adultery (by cheating on God with other gods). The leaders' role is to lead God's people away from these things, but they fell into unfaithfulness and led Israel with them. The man who unashamedly brought the Midianite woman in front of Israel was displaying defiance to God. Before that sin had a chance to regrow, Phinehas went to kill him and saved all of Israel from adultery, again.

But there's one more question about God's character: Will His mercy ever accommodate the wicked? Remember when Abraham asked God if He would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were atleast some righteous men? What did God say? Well, God answered He would spare the wicked cities even if there were 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10...well, you get the picture:

God is a god who SPARES THE WICKED for the sake of sparing the righteous. We serve a God who's mercy extends beyond the faithful towards the unfaithful; and beyond the believing towards the unbelieving, like many of us were. God is a God of mercy, and so we should be zealous to remove sin. which is exactly what His mercy fights against. "In view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship."

...And Phinehas doesn't sound like a bad name =)