Zeal for God’s honor (Num 25)

Numbers 25:1-18
Key verse 25:13

In June, 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered that the Ten Commandments displayed on a granite monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol be removed. The monument was authorized in 2009. Then a person made a lawsuit, complaining that the monument violated the state constitution. Surprisingly, the person was a Baptist minister. He said, "I'm not opposed to the Ten Commandments. …I'm just opposed to it being on public property." (USAToday.com) What do you think about this? Do you agree with him? Or do you feel frustrated or angry? Or you have no feeling at all? No matter what feelings or thoughts you may have, what is important is how God thinks and feels about it. That is what I am going to talk about it today. The title of my message is “Zeal for God’s honor.”

In the previous passage (chapters 22-24), Balak the king of Moab tried to curse Israel through Balaam, a famous diviner. But God thwarted their scheme and had Balaam bless Israel instead. Balaam prophesized that Israel would be great and a king would come out of them and destroy the enemies. But at the foot of the mountain where Balaam blessed Israel, something unthinkable is happening in the camp of Israel. Israel is whoring with the Moabite women. God gets so angry that he kills many of the Israelites. However, one man stands up and appeases God’s anger. Today, we are going to talk about God’s jealousy and how the man appeases God’s anger. I pray that through this passage God may give us zeal for his honor in this perverse generation.

1 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, 2 who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. 3 So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.

Shittim was about 10 miles east of Jericho. It was Israel’s final encampment before they crossed the Jordan. (Josh 2:1). But just after being blessed by God through Balaam and before they entered the land of Canaan, Israel perpetrated a terrible sin while staying in Shittim. They indulged in sexual immorality with Moabites women. What is worse, the Moabites women invited them to Baal worship, which usually involved sexual acts. When the Israelites men saw meats and wine, which were dedicated to Baal, and sexual acts conducted during the course of the Baal worship, their spiritual guard was dismantled and they began to indulge in sexual immorality. This spread quickly among the Israelites and many of them were Israel leaders.

How come this happened? Verse 18 says that the Moabites deceived the Israelites. According to 31:16 and Rev 2:14, Balaam advised the Moabites to entice the Israelites to be unfaithful to God. So the Moabites intentionally seduced the Israelites in order to separate them from God and thus from his blessing. Probably, the Israelites took their invitation naively and then hung out with Moabite women and then sexed with them and then worshiped Baal. Nevertheless, the Israelites were still accountable for their sin.

In Ex 34:15-16, God warned Israel not to associate with the Canaanites because Israel would easily follow their pagan practices. Despite God’s warning, Israel indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and bowed down before Baal worship. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.

And the Lord’s anger burned against them. 4 The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.” 5 So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”

God was burned with anger. He ordered Moses to kill those who yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. Exposing one in broad daylight was likely impaling dead bodies on a stick. This showed how much God was infuriated with Israel. However, God also commanded this execution to assuage his anger. He said, “so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.” Otherwise, all the Israelite would perish even before they entered the land of Canaan. However, they had to bear penalty of their sin. A plague already broke out and killed 24,000 people. How did the Israelites respond?

6 Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

The whole assembly of Israel wept at the entrance to the tent of meeting. They were terribly sorry for their sin. Then they saw a fellow Israelite man bringing into their camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of the whole assembly of Israel! By the way, the Moabites and the Midianites collaborated in cursing Israel (22:4, 7), and evidently in the seduction of Israel also. This Israelite man seemed not to care about what was going on in the camp. Rather, by bringing a Midianite woman into the camp, he flouted the whole assembly of Israel who were weeping before God and thus blasphemed God. The scene was so shocking that they did not know what to do with the man. No one would even stop him or do something about this horrible sin. How would you feel if you were one of the Israelites? And what would you do?

7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

Seeing this, one man stood up and took an action. He was Phinehas. He was a priest and a grandson of Aaron. He took a spear and followed the man into the tent and drove the spear into both the man and the woman who perhaps were in the act of intercourse. Phinehas killed these two ungodly people on the spot. What do you think about Phinehas’ act? To some people, his act seemed to be inhumane. But how did God take this? Seeing what Phinehas did God immediately stopped the plague, which already killed 24,000 Israelites.

10 The Lord said to Moses, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal.

God said that Phinehas was as zealous as he was. What does it mean? The original word (qina: קִנְאָה) is translated into jealousy or zeal, depending on the context. We have to understand this word in light of God’s covenant with his people Israel. At Mount Sinai, God made a covenant with Israel. God said, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” (Ex 19:5) Then Israel replied, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” (Ex 19:8) That way Israel made a vow that they would be faithful to God. And God promised that he would bless them abundantly if they kept the covenant faithfully. But he also warned them that he would punish them if they were unfaithful to the covenant. Particularly, he strongly warned them of idol worship.

In the Ten Commandment, God said, “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”  

Later in Deut 4:23-24, he said, “23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”

When he warned them of idol worship, he said that he is a jealous God. God alone deserves honor, glory, and worship. But when such things are given to someone or something, he is jealous.

In Isaiah 42:8, God says, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”

But idol worship attributes such things to idols or sharing them with other gods. Fundamentally, it is denying God’s exclusive possession of glory and honor and thus God’s sovereignty. God does not tolerate that. He is actually burned with anger when his people give honor to other gods and break the covenant with God. In that sense, God is a jealous God.

But the same word (qina) is also translated as zeal when God fulfills his promises despite his people’s unfaithfulness. This God is a zealous God. For example, in Isaiah 9:7 God said that he would restore Israel with his zeal.

However, in today’s passage the word is more likely used in relation to God’s holiness and justice. So, many Bible translations translate the word as jealousy. For example, NASB reads, “he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy.”

When Israel committed sexual immorality with Moabite women and worship their god Baal, God was so mad because they broke the covenant with him, making themselves unclean with sex and worshiping Baal. So according to the covenant with Israel, God punished them in his jealous anger.

Seeing the Israelite man who boldly and shamelessly brought the Midianite woman into the holy camp, Phinehas was greatly agitated because God was dishonored and even mocked by that. He could not bear such blaspheme in the camp of God. He could not tolerate the man’s perversion. Phinehas was burned with God’s jealousy. He felt as God felt. His jealousy went off and he took a very bold action to restore God’s honor. His jealousy was holy anger, which came out of his jealousy for God’s honor.

God was pleased with such Phinehas and then turned his anger away from the Israelites. God would have finished Israel in his jealousy. But he stopped it because Phinehas appeased his anger with his jealousy. In verse 13, God said that Phinehas made atonement for the Israelites. Actually, he did not make an atonement sacrifice to God. But God took his action of jealousy as the atonement for Israel and then his anger died down. Otherwise, the whole Israel could have been finished.

12 Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. 13 He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

God made a covenant of peace with Phinehas that he and his descendants would have a covenant of a lasting priesthood because he was zealous for the honor of God and made atonement for the Israelites. Ps 106:28-31 commemorate Phinehas like this: “28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; 29 they aroused the Lord’s anger by their wicked deeds, and a plague broke out among them. 30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. 31 This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.”

Aaron had four sons but two of them died early. (Lev 10) And the other two sons (Eleazar and Ithamar) and their descendants became the high priest alternatively. But the descendants of Ithamar could no longer assume the high priest position since the time of King Solomon (1 kings 2:27) because of the sin of Eli (1 Sam 2:27-36). Since then the descendant of Phinehas, a son of Eleazar, had exclusively assumed the high priest position.

14 The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. 15 And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Kozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

Interestingly, the author of this book revealed the names of the Israelites man and the Midianite woman who were killed by Phinehas, and their family background. They both belonged to high class families. The man was from the leader of a Simeonite family and the woman was from a tribal chief of a Midianite family. This showed how deeply their depravity was prevalent among the Israelite leaders and how shrewdly the Moabites campaigned against Israel.

16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them. 18 They treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the Peor incident involving their sister Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of that incident.”

After punishing the Israelites, God told Moses that Israel should kill the Midianites as enemies because they treated Israel as enemies by deceiving them in the Peor incident. And the struggle with Midian continued in Israel’s history as seen in Chaper 31 and Judges 6–8.

Overall, Israel committed a great sin before God with sexual immorality and Baal worship, which God hated the most. This incident could have destroyed Israel unless Phinehas had not killed the Israelite man and the woman. God is a jealous God. He is burned with jealous anger when his people are perverse. Interestingly, when Korah rebelled against God in the desert, 14,700 people were killed together with him. But when the Israelites indulged in sexual immorality with pagans, 24,000 people were killed. This shows how much God hates his people’s sexual immorality and idol worship.

Today our Idols can be money, worldly pleasure, human ideas, and particularly sexual immorality. If we put ourselves first or if we first spend our time and energy for something else rather than God, then we are making God jealous. God has saved us by sacrificing his son Jesus. In some sense, we have married him through Jesus. But if we are unfaithful to him, seeking something else first and not giving him honor and worship, we are unfaithful to him and we make him jealous.

Do not make God jealous. Do not make him angry with sexual immorality and idol worship. But fear the God of jealousy. As his people, we should be zealous for his honor in this perverse generation. God is pleased and honored when his people are jealous as he is.

Our Lord Jesus once drove out sellers from the temple, saying, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:17) This fulfilled Ps 69:9, which reads, “for zeal for your house consumes me…” (Ps 69:9) Jesus is the most humble and gentle. But he did not tolerate their ungodly acts in the house of God. He did not overlook when God was dishonored. Most of all, with zeal for God’s honor, he gave himself as an atonement to stop God’s anger at sinners. Without Jesus, we would be all consumed with God’s anger. 

Basically, such zeal and jealousy come from love and concern for God. How would you feel if your loved one is mocked and treated badly? And what would you do? Then how do you feel when God’s name is blasphemed? What would you do to honor God?

Christians today are immune to ungodly things and we are so quiet when we should not. Two years ago Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk, refused to issue gay marriage license and she was arrested. She suffered but she honored God by not conforming to the world even though that was the order of the Supreme Court.

I am not saying that we should take social and political actions like Kim Davis or punish people as Phinehas did in today’s passage. But we should have such zeal for God’s honor because our God deserves honor and glory. And there are many different ways to honor God.

JG’s current job contract expires in a couple of week. So he searched for a new job and got a good job offer. But he found out that the job required him to work Saturday night. That meant that he would miss the Sunday worship service or doze off even if he could attend the service. So he turned down the job offer because he wanted to worship God not money. He believes that if he seeks God first and worship him only, he will provide for him. Someone reads the Bible and pray first before he starts a new day even though he is busy. Someone acknowledges God and puts his trust in God regarding his uncertain future. Someone offers his/her first salary to God, acknowledging that it is God’s. Such people are not many these days. So they are more precious, beautiful to God like Phinehas. God is so pleased with such people and blesses them for sure. God is a jealous God. Who has his jealousy? It is you who should have zeal for God’s honor because God has saved you from sin and Satan out of his jealousy. With such zeal, we can overcome sexual immorality and idol worship, which are rampant everywhere today. May God bless us to have zeal for his honor.

By David Yun