Numbers 25:6

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁶Just then, an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.⁷On seeing this, Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand, ⁸followed the Israelite into his tent, and drove the spear through both of them-through the Israelite and on through the belly of the woman. So the plague against the Israelites was halted, ⁹but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. ¹⁰Then the LORD said to Moses, ¹¹"Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the Israelites; for he was zealous for My sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in My zeal. ¹²Declare, therefore, that I grant him My covenant of peace. ¹³It will be a covenant of permanent priesthood for him and his descendants, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites." ¹⁴The name of the Israelite who was slain with the Midianie woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. ¹⁵And the name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

a Midianitish: Numbers 25:14, Numbers 25:15, Numbers 22:4, Numbers 31:2, Numbers 31:9-16

in the sight of Moses: Numbers 15:30, Numbers 15:31, Deuteronomy 29:19-21, Jeremiah 3:3, Jeremiah 8:12, Jeremiah 36:23, Jeremiah 42:15-18, Jeremiah 43:4-7, Jeremiah 44:16, Jeremiah 44:17, 2 Peter 2:13-15, Jude 1:13

weeping: Judges 2:4, Ezra 9:1-4, Ezra 10:6-9, Isaiah 22:12, Ezekiel 9:4-6, Joel 2:17

Reciprocal: 2 Samuel 16:22 - went in 1 Kings 11:18 - Midian 2 Kings 22:19 - wept 1 Chronicles 1:32 - Midian 1 Chronicles 6:4 - Phinehas Psalms 94:16 - rise up Psalms 106:30 - General Proverbs 7:13 - she Isaiah 57:5 - Enflaming Acts 17:16 - his spirit 1 Corinthians 5:2 - mourned 2 Corinthians 11:29 - and I burn

Cross-References

Genesis 16:3
So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.

Genesis 21:14
Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar's shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

Genesis 25:1
Now Abraham had taken another wife, named Keturah,

Genesis 25:2
and she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

Genesis 25:11
After Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived near Beer-lahai-roi.

Genesis 25:13
These are the names of the sons of Ishmael in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,

Genesis 25:14
Mishma, Dumah, Massa,

Genesis 25:15
Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.

Genesis 30:4
So Rachel gave Jacob her servant Bilhah as his wife, and he slept with her,

Genesis 30:9
When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And, behold, one of the children of Israel came,.... From one of the cities of Moab or Midian, the latter rather, by what follows; where he had been, very probably, to an idolatrous feast, and had eaten of the sacrifices, and worshipped idols, and committed fornication with the daughters of the land; and not content with indulging himself with those impurities at a distance and where he was less known:

brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman; into his father's family, into a tent where his brethren dwelt:

in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel; in the most open and undisguised manner, into the midst of the camp, passing by Moses, and a great number of the people, who were gathered together on this solemn occasion, to seek the Lord, and humble themselves before him:

who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; the place where the people used to assemble together for religious exercises; here they were weeping and mourning for the sins and abominations that were committed among them, and on account of the punishment inflicted on many of them, by the hand of the civil magistrate, and because of the plague that was broke out upon them, from an angry God; by which it appears, that though there were many who had fallen into those foul sins, yet there were a great number which were not defiled with them, and sighed and cried for the abominations in the midst of them: and because the fact here recorded was such an amazing piece of impudence, the word "behold" is prefixed to the account of it, it being done in such a public, bold, and audacious manner, and at such a time, when so many had been hanged up for it, and the plague of God was broke out among the people on account of it, and good men were bewailing the sin, and the punishment of it; and if this was on a sabbath day, as the Samaritan Chronicle x relates, it was a further aggravation of it.

x Apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 448.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A Midianite woman - literally, “the Midianite woman,” the particular one by whom he had been enticed (compare Numbers 25:15 and Numbers 31:18). Her high rank proves that Zimri had not fallen in with her by mere chance, but had been deliberately singled out by the Midianites as one whom they must at any price lead astray.

Weeping before the door of the tabernacle - The plague Numbers 25:9 had already broken out among the people: and the more God-fearing had assembled at the door of the tabernacle of God (compare the marginal reference.) to intercede for mercy, when Zimri committed the fresh and public outrage just described.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Numbers 25:6. One of the children of Israel — Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief family in the tribe of Simeon, Numbers 25:14, brought a Midianitish woman, Cozbi, daughter of Zur, head over a people of one of the chief families in Midian, Numbers 25:15. The condition of these two persons plainly proves it to have been a matrimonial alliance, the one was a prince, the other a princess; therefore I must conclude that fornication or whoredom, in the common sense of the word, was not practised on this occasion. The matter was bad enough, as the marriage was in flat opposition to the law of God; and we need not make it worse by representing the woman as a common prostitute, as the Vulgate and several others have done. In such a case this is absolutely inadmissible. Josephus positively says that Zimri had married Cozbi, Antiq., 1. iv., cap. 6; and if he had not said so, still the thing is nearly self-evident. Numbers 24:25; Numbers 24:25.

The children of Israel, who were weeping — This aggravated the crime, because the people were then in a state of great humiliation, because of the late impure and illegal transactions.