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Patriarchs and Prophets
rites were coming to be observed in the camp of Israel. The aged
leader was filled with indignation, and the wrath of God was kindled.
Their iniquitous practices did that for Israel which all the enchant-
ments of Balaam could not do—they separated them from God. By
swift-coming judgments the people were awakened to the enormity of
their sin. A terrible pestilence broke out in the camp, to which tens of
thousands speedily fell a prey. God commanded that the leaders in this
apostasy be put to death by the magistrates. This order was promptly
obeyed. The offenders were slain, then their bodies were hung up in
sight of all Israel that the congregation, seeing the leaders so severely
dealt with, might have a deep sense of God’s abhorrence of their sin
and the terror of His wrath against them.
All felt that the punishment was just, and the people hastened to
the tabernacle, and with tears and deep humiliation confessed their sin.
While they were thus weeping before God, at the door of the tabernacle,
while the plague was still doing its work of death, and the magistrates
were executing their terrible commission, Zimri, one of the nobles
of Israel, came boldly into the camp, accompanied by a Midianitish
harlot, a princess “of a chief house in Midian,” whom he escorted to
his tent. Never was vice bolder or more stubborn. Inflamed with wine,
Zimri declared his “sin as Sodom,” and gloried in his shame. The
priests and leaders had prostrated themselves in grief and humiliation,
weeping “between the porch and the altar,” and entreating the Lord
to spare His people, and give not His heritage to reproach, when this
prince in Israel flaunted his sin in the sight of the congregation, as
if to defy the vengeance of God and mock the judges of the nation.
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the high priest, rose up from among the
congregation, and seizing a javelin, “he went after the man of Israel
into the tent,” and slew them both. Thus the plague was stayed, while
the priest who had executed the divine judgment was honored before
all Israel, and the priesthood was confirmed to him and to his house
forever.
Phinehas “hath turned My wrath away from the children of Israel,”
was the divine message; “wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him My
covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even
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the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for
his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.”