2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES
Wednesday in the Word
Second Baptist Church
February 26, 2020
Numbers 25
Introduction. We left off last week with God not allowing Balaam to pronounce a curse on the people of God. It would seem like that would be the last we would hear of Balaam. Unfortunately, Balaam wasn't able to pronounce a curse on the people of God, but he did succeed in hurting the Israelites. If you jump to Numbers 31:8-18, and read Revelations 2:12-17, we get some insight on what happened between chapter 24 and chapter 25. It appears that Balaam gave the enemy an idea to seduce the men of Israel to sleep with foreign women and the Israelite men prostituted themselves into idolatry. It was impossible to persuade God to forsake His purpose of blessing Israel, but history had proven that it would be very easy to turn Israel from the right path by rebelling against God's Word, thereby incurring His wrath. All Balaam had to do was to tempt the Israelites to sin in such a way that they would fall under the curse of God as laid out in the law. It was an ingenious plan, and incredibly simple. The Israelites could be seduced to follow other gods, and this would anger God to the point that they would incur the curses God had pronounced on those who practiced such sins! The plan that quickly formed in Balaam’s mind seemed to be flawless. If God is faithful and does not change, man is fickle and prone to wander. He would counsel Balak: ”If you can't beat ’em, join ’em." By inviting them to dinner (and thus to participate in idol worship with them), the Moabites would entice the Israelites to engage in sexual and spiritual harlotry. This was an abomination to God and would thus bring a curse upon them. Here was a sure-fire, indirect way to bring about the same objective Balaam had failed to accomplish directly. Israel's waywardness throughout their time in the wilderness gave Balaam confidence his plan would work. Oftentimes, the enemy tricks us into defeating ourselves from the inside rather than from the outside.
Verses 1-3. While the Israelites were camped waiting to enter the promise land, some Moabite women enticed some of the men to join them in the sacrifices to their pagan gods. These women used the offer of sexual favors to seduce the men to commit terrible acts of idolatry that God had commanded them not to do some 30 years before. The text says that the anger of the Lord burned against them. We are to take from this that God had released a plague among the people for their disobedience.
Verses 4-9. Apparently, Moses and the leaders were weeping, because of the plague, in front of the tent of meeting. While they were there crying and weeping, God was quick to tell Moses to execute any of the men who had committed idolatry with these women. As soon as Moses hears the command of God to execute the men who committed adultery, an Israelite man flaunts a woman in broad daylight to the mockery of God. Most likely, the man was drunk and totally consumed in his sin. People are dying and he is still flaunting his evil behavior. It would appear that the leaders did little or nothing to deal with the idolatry and immorality of the people. The only person who is said to have acted in response to Israel’s great sin was Phinehas. Even Moses seems to have done nothing more than to order the judges to locate the guilty and see to it that they were punished. The priest, seeing thousands dying due to this plague, takes matters into his own hands and kills the couple while they are engaged in sexual immorality thus causing God to end the plague on the people.
Verses 10-13. God tells Moses that he is making a lasting covenant with Phineas and his family for the bravery and zeal that he showed to end the plague and prevent more from dying. For a brief period of time, it looked as though Balaam had succeeded. The nation had been seduced and had fallen into spiritual harlotry. God's wrath had been provoked, and thus He had sent a plague upon Israel. Thanks to the zealous action of one man—Phinehas--the nation was spared. Balaam had not succeeded in turning God's blessing to a curse. Instead, God spared His people through the action of one righteous man. Verses 17 and 18 set the scene for the rest of the Book of Numbers. Because the Moabites and the Midianites had cursed God's people rather than bless them, they brought a curse upon themselves. God therefore commanded Moses to see to it that the Midianites were destroyed for their treachery.
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