Numbers 25-26

I'm sure the city you live in has a lovely name, or at least an innocuous one, but I always find it amusing just how many questionably named places exist on our little planet. Most of the sillier ones are a little too uncouth to list in a post of this nature, but some of the milder ones are the Butt of Lewis in Scotland, Middelfart in Denmark, Scratchy Bottom in England, Boring and Idiotville in Oregon, and Zzyzx in California. After our little Balaam interlude, we rejoin the Israelites who, shockingly, are acting imbecilic again in another contender for snigger-inducing place names: the aptly monikered Shittim.

Some of the Israelites get seduced by some fetching Moabite women, going as far as to worship Baal and other idols. I'm guessing Baal wasn't the main attraction here--after all, he doesn't exist, at least not as a living entity--rather, the men probably just allowed their hormones to run away with them. I get that they were probably feeling doleful after meandering around in the wilderness for 40 years, but that's still no excuse to spurn the God who brought you out of captivity and had already provided several warnings that proved fatal for some of your less fortunate brethren.

Then, while God is in the midst of judging the Israelites, a wretch named Zimri has the gall to take a Midianite woman to do who-knows-what (well, we actually do know what, but I don't think we need to spell it out in vivid detail)--right in front of Moses! Imagine a scene in which the police are trying to quell a riot and then, right in front of the cops, a man pulls an innocent bystander out of the crowd and shoots him in the head. God has more authority and demands more respect than any human, making Zimri's transgression exponentially worse.

Phinehas, one of Aaron's grandsons, takes matters into his own hands with some semi-vigilante justice, stabbing Zimri all the way through so that the spear also penetrates his compatriot, Kozbi (verse 8). This gruesome scene evokes the same sense of dangerously voyeuristic pleasure at seeing justice so violently meted out as there is to some of the later Israelite judges (particularly Ehud and Deborah). God approves of it as well, praising Phinehas for his "zeal" and making a "covenant of peace" with him and his descendants (verses 11-13). Which brings up the age-old question: Do we sometimes need violence to create peace? (I'm not going to go into that here, as that topic would require its own monograph.)

Numbers 25 offers up another scintillating census which, like all genealogical records and lists, I'm sure makes for engrossing reading if you're related to any of the blokes listed. Other than the understandable diminishment of Simeon's clan caused by Zimri's unsavory blunder, the most notable statistic about this census is just how consistent the Israelites' numbers remained despite 40 years of ambling around in the desert. When they set out from Mt. Sinai, they had 603,550 fighting men (1:46). Now, they have 601,730 (26:51). They screwed up so many times that it seemed like God was dishing out plagues, disasters, and general discombobulation as if He were giving away Tootsie Roll Pops, but still He allowed them to be frisky and prolific enough to maintain their, well, numbers.