Numbers 25 - Zeal

This chapter packed a punch. Amazingly, the Israelites have again fallen into idolatry and its accompanying vices, i.e., fornication. It seems that there is no end to the failings of God's people. Yet, as I thought of these things, I instantly caught myself pointing a finger, when the finger should really be pointed at me. The Israelites, I must remember, represent all of us; and their journey through the desert is a figure for our journey through life; and their failings in the desert is a figure for our failings in life; and all the second-chances they are given by God is a figure for the forgiveness we are given when we fail. It shouldn't seem so crazy that the Israelites fell back into idolatry so many times when we count up the number of times we have sinned against God. It's frustrating, though, to read about a people so near to their promised land, and yet they still can't stay true to God. But, of course, we are all so near to the promises God has made to us through His Son Jesus Christ, and yet we still find a way to fall short. It doesn't matter that the Israelites are at the border of Canaan, or that we are near the gates of Heaven -- we are weak creatures, and it is only God's mercy that allows us the possibility of eternal life.

The central event of this chapter, though, is the actions of the priest Phinees. The Israelites have fallen into a depraved state of idolatry and fornication (as they intermix with the Moabites and Madianites), and Moses and the judges and priests are of course worried and agitated by this crisis. What Phinees does is quite shocking, but we must remember to keep his action not only in context but in view of God's divine plan for His future Church. For what Phinees does he does out of a zealous love for God. His act of killing two fornicating sinners is done at an acute moment in the history of the Israelites. The people as a whole are abandoning the Law that Moses instituted; they are sinning in the face of God; they are dismissing God, forgetting Him, blaspheming Him. Zambri (the man Phinees kills) is even so upfront about his evilness that he openly enters a woman's tent with obvious intentions in sight of Moses and the priests praying at the Tabernacle! The affront here shown to God is shocking and drastic. Phinees can hardly believe his eyes and is so overwhelmed with a zeal for defending God that he is driven to administer a fatal punishment right then and there. Phinees's action is not exactly to be copied by us, but his zeal is. This was a time when capital punishment was practiced widely in all societies, and for reasons that we are of no authority or expertise to question, God allowed it for those people at that time. The account of Phinees is no doubt though meant to show us the mindset of a true soldier of the Lord. We are to react in defense of our God when He is attacked. But as we have been instructed by Jesus, we are to do this mildly. We must admonish the sinner with love. We must mix Phinees's zeal with a true charity when we are defending our Lord. And so God has allowed us the opportunity to learn from Phinees's harsh actions.