Chapter 25

While Israel is settled in Shittim, rather than wandering, they begin to get tight with Moab, and begin to sacrifice to the Moabite gods and worship them.  This has the appearance of a plot - maybe Balaam is already busy doing his thing, we just aren't told about it yet.  Here is the verse:

2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. [Num 25:2 ESV]

This seems to say that the contact was initiated by the Moabites.  This doesn't lessen the guilt of Israel, but may indicate a new strategy by Balak and his friends to protect themselves from Israel.

The Moabites worship Baal of Peor. Here is what God tells Moses to do about this:

4 And the LORD said to Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel." 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor." [Num 25:4-5 ESV]

How many chiefs were there?  It doesn't say that this order was carried out, but it doesn't say it wasn't.  I suspect that those who participated in what may have been a one time thing were all hanged.  A warning of how seriously God takes idolatry.  Now this verse:

6 And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. [Num 25:6 ESV]

I read this as the people were weeping over the hanging of the chiefs that participated in this.  And right in the middle of all this grief, with the bodies of the chiefs hanging in the sun as punishment for their unfaithfulness, this guy brings home a Midianite woman to the family.  Welcoming her in. 

God is very angry, and 24,000 die of plague.  The plague stops when Phineas sticks a spear through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman at the same time, through the belly.  Again it is not completely clear, but it seems the plague started when this man brought the Midianite woman into the camp.  This plague was a separate thing, for a separate act, than the hanging of the chiefs of Israel.  Another very slow learner.  God "promotes" Phinehas and his family to be priests from here on.  Phinehas was already the son of Eleazar, the high priest, and he is the grandson of Aaron.  Seems to me he was already in line to be priest and likely the next high priest.  But this verse:

12 Therefore say, 'Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, 13 and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.'" [Num 25:12-13 ESV]

The MSB note on this says that "Because of Phinehas' zeal for God's holiness, the Lord made "a covenant of a perpetual priesthood" with him so that through his family line would come all future, legitimate High-Priests (cf Ps 106:30, 31).  This promise will extend even into the millennial kingdom (cf Eze 40:46; 44:10, 15; 48:11)."  So this was a very big deal.

God tells Moses that Israel is to harass the Midianites because of what has happened, for their part in leading Israel astray.  There is this verse, making it plain that the seducing of Israel by Midian was a designed plan, not a "neighborly invitation".

18 for they have harassed you with their wiles, with which they beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the chief of Midian, their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague on account of Peor." [Num 25:18 ESV]

This verse confirms the intention of Midian to undermine Israel.

2021 - I note that the man who brought the Midianite woman into camp was the son of a "chief of a father's house of the Simeonites".  This young man was the son of a chief, a high ranking man of the tribe of Simeon.  And the woman, Cozbi, was the daughter of Zur, a tribal head of his father's house in Midian.  So she was the daughter of a Midianite Chief, he was the son of a Simeonite chief.  This was an attempt to ally Midian and Israel, and so avert any kind of hostilities between them.  A "live and let live" arrangement in the making.  This whole thing was more than a backyard barbecue for the new neighbors.  This was political intrigue as it has always been practiced.  And this young man of Simeon had fallen for it, and taken this woman home, and his family had perhaps welcomed here also, as we so often do with the poor choices of our children.  We shrug them off.  In this case, the shrug cost 24,000 lives.