Bilangan 16:26-27

16:26 And he said to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked ¹  men, and do not touch anything they have, lest you be destroyed because ²  of all their sins.” ³  16:27 So they got away from the homes of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram on every side, and Dathan and Abiram came out and stationed themselves ⁴  in the entrances of their tents with their wives, their children, and their toddlers.

Bilangan 21:7

21:7 Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he would take away ⁵  the snakes from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

Bilangan 25:4

God’s Punishment

25:4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders ⁶  of the people, and hang them up ⁷  before the Lord in broad daylight, ⁸  so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”

Bilangan 25:11

25:11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal ⁹  for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. ¹⁰ 

[16:26]  ¹ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) has the sense of a guilty criminal. The word “wicked” sometimes gives the wrong connotation. These men were opposing the Lord, and so were condemned as criminals – they were guilty. The idea of “wickedness” therefore applies in that sense.

[16:26]  ² tn The preposition bet (בְּ) in this line is causal – “on account of their sins.”

[16:26]  ³ sn The impression is that the people did not hear what the Lord said to Moses, but only what Moses said to the people as a result. They saw the brilliant cloud, and perhaps heard the sound of his voice, but the relaying of the instructions indicates they did not hear the actual instruction from the Lord himself.

[16:27]  ⁴ tn The verb נִצָּבִים (nitsavim) suggests a defiant stance, for the word is often used in the sense of taking a stand for or against something. It can also be somewhat neutral, having the sense of positioning oneself for a purpose.

[21:7]  ⁵ tn The verb is the Hiphil jussive with a vav (ו) consecutive from the verb סוּר (sur); after the imperative this form may be subordinated to become a purpose clause.

[25:4]  ⁶ sn The meaning must be the leaders behind the apostasy, for they would now be arrested. They were responsible for the tribes’ conformity to the Law, but here they had not only failed in their duty, but had participated. The leaders were executed; the rest of the guilty died by the plague.

[25:4]  ⁷ sn The leaders who were guilty were commanded by God to be publicly exposed by hanging, probably a reference to impaling, but possibly some other form of harsh punishment. The point was that the swaying of their executed bodies would be a startling warning for any who so blatantly set the Law aside and indulged in apostasy through pagan sexual orgies.

[25:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.

[25:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “he was zealous with my zeal.” The repetition of forms for “zeal” in the line stresses the passion of Phinehas. The word “zeal” means a passionate intensity to protect or preserve divine or social institutions.

[25:11]  ¹⁰ tn The word for “zeal” now occurs a third time. While some English versions translate this word here as “jealousy” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), it carries the force of God’s passionate determination to defend his rights and what is right about the covenant and the community and parallels the “zeal” that Phinehas had just demonstrated.