Bird's-eye view
This brief but potent command from Yahweh to Moses serves as the judicial capstone to the grotesque incident at Baal Peor. After the righteous zeal of Phinehas has stayed the plague, God does not simply move on. He formally identifies the principal human culprits behind the spiritual treason and pronounces sentence. The command is for a holy war, a retributive action against the Midianites. This is not arbitrary violence; it is a covenanted response to a particularly insidious form of warfare. The Midianites had not attacked Israel with swords and spears, but with something far more dangerous: seductive, idolatrous treachery. They targeted Israel's holiness, aiming to sever the nation from their God and thus leave them vulnerable and cursed. God's command here is a demonstration that spiritual and sexual sedition is an act of high hostility against His covenant people, and therefore against Him. He is training His people to understand that the most dangerous enemies are not always those with the biggest armies, but those with the most subtle and corrupting wiles.
The passage establishes a crucial principle of covenantal justice: lex talionis, an eye for an eye. Because the Midianites were hostile, Israel is to be hostile. Because they used wiles, their society is to be struck down. This is not personal vengeance; it is divinely sanctioned justice executed by the magistrate, in this case, the nation of Israel acting as God's appointed instrument. The specificity of the charge, naming both the general affair of Peor and the specific case of Cozbi, underscores the corporate and individual responsibility of Midian. A princess of Midian was a key player, indicating this was not a rogue operation but a deliberate strategy from their leadership. This command sets the stage for the holy war that will be executed in Numbers 31, a war that is a direct consequence of this verdict.
Outline
- 1. The Divine Sentence (Num 25:16-18)
- a. The Command Issued (Num 25:16)
- b. The Charge: Hostility and Retribution (Num 25:17)
- c. The Justification: Warfare by Deception (Num 25:18)
- i. The Corporate Crime: The Affair of Peor
- ii. The Representative Criminal: Cozbi the Princess
Context In Numbers
These verses come immediately after the account of Israel's catastrophic sin at Shittim, where the men of Israel began to whore with the daughters of Moab and were lured into the idolatrous worship of Baal of Peor (Num 25:1-3). This act of spiritual adultery provoked the fierce anger of Yahweh, resulting in a deadly plague. The plague was only stopped by the decisive zeal of Phinehas, who executed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, Cozbi, in the very act of their profane union (Num 25:6-8). God then commends Phinehas and establishes with him a covenant of a perpetual priesthood (Num 25:10-13). Our text (vv. 16-18) is God's direct response and follow-up. It provides the legal grounds for the subsequent war against Midian. It clarifies that while Moabite women were involved, the Midianites were the strategic instigators. This sets the stage for Numbers 31, where Moses, before he dies, carries out this very command to strike the Midianites. Thus, this passage is the bridge between the sin at Peor and the execution of God's justice upon the tempters.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Holy War
- Corporate Guilt and Punishment
- Warfare by Seduction and Deceit
- Lex Talionis (Eye for an Eye) Justice
- The Relationship Between Moab and Midian
- The Distinction Between Divine Justice and Personal Vengeance
Warfare by Other Means
We live in an age that has a hard time with passages like this. Our therapeutic sensibilities want a God who is always nice, never severe. But the God of the Bible is a God of justice, which means He is sometimes terribly severe. The key to understanding this command is to recognize what the Midianites had done. This was not a border skirmish or a trade dispute. This was total war, waged at the spiritual level. Following the counsel of the corrupt prophet Balaam (Num 31:16), the Midianites understood that Israel's strength was not in their chariots, but in their covenant with Yahweh. To defeat Israel, you had to sever that covenant bond. And how do you do that? You get them to sin. You get them to commit spiritual treason.
The Midianites weaponized their women. They sent them into the camp of Israel not for romance, but for subversion. The goal was to entangle the men of Israel in sexual sin, and through that entanglement, draw them into the worship of their foul god, Baal of Peor. This was a deliberate, strategic assault on Israel's holiness. It was an act of profound hostility, aimed at the very heart of Israel's national life. When God commands Israel to "be hostile" in return, He is simply applying the principle of measure for measure. He is teaching His people that spiritual and cultural warfare is real warfare, and that those who try to destroy a people by corrupting them are just as much enemies as those who attack with the sword. In fact, they are more dangerous.
Verse by Verse Commentary
16 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
The action here flows directly from God. This is not Moses' idea, nor is it a popular cry for revenge from the people. This is a divine edict, a formal declaration from the covenant Lord. The plague has been stayed, the internal apostasy has been cut out by the spear of Phinehas, and now the external source of the temptation must be dealt with. God is the one who initiates this, establishing it as an act of perfect justice, not of hot-headed human retaliation. This is the King on His throne, issuing orders to His servant Moses. The structure is one of law and judgment.
17 “Be hostile to the Midianites and strike them,
The verb here, often translated "vex" or "harass," carries the sense of treating someone as an enemy. It is a command to adopt a posture of active hostility. This is not a suggestion to feel angry; it is a command to act. And the action is specified: "strike them." This is the language of holy war. God is commissioning Israel to be His instrument of judgment. We must distinguish this from personal vendettas. In the Old Covenant, God at times deputized the nation of Israel to act as His executioner against nations that had filled up the measure of their sin. The Midianites, through this act of high-handed spiritual sabotage, had done just that. The punishment is to fit the crime. They acted as enemies, so they are to be treated as enemies.
18 for they have been hostile to you with their deceptive tricks, with which they have deceived you in the affair of Peor and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of the leader of Midian, their sister who was slain on the day of the plague because of Peor.”
Here we have the legal grounds for the sentence, the "for" that explains the "why." God is not arbitrary. His judgments are always righteous, and He lays out the reason. The hostility of Midian was not an open declaration of war, but something more slithery. They used deceptive tricks, or wiles. They came with smiles and invitations, but their intent was murderous. Their weapon was beguilement. This is the ancient strategy of the serpent in the garden, who did not attack Adam with claws and fangs, but with a subtle, deceptive question. The Midianites were playing the serpent's game, and God identifies it as such.
He names two specifics. First, the general crime: "the affair of Peor." This was the corporate sin of the Midianite nation in orchestrating the seduction. Second, He names the representative criminal: "the affair of Cozbi." Her name is recorded for all time. And she was not just any woman; she was the daughter of a Midianite leader. This was not a case of a few wayward girls. This was official policy, coming from the top down. The leadership of Midian sent a princess to lead the charge in this debauchery. Her high rank makes the corporate guilt of the nation undeniable. She is called "their sister," identifying her with her people, and her sin with their sin. Her public and shameless death at the hand of Phinehas was the down payment on the judgment that would now fall upon her entire nation. The reason for the war is clear: the Midianites were hostile schemers who tried to destroy Israel through satanic subtlety.
Application
We are not the nation-state of Israel under the Old Covenant, and the church does not wield the sword to execute God's judgment on nations. Our weapons are not carnal, but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds (2 Cor 10:4). But the principles here remain intensely relevant. We must learn to identify our true enemies, and we must learn the nature of their warfare.
The primary attack against the people of God is rarely a frontal assault. It is almost always the way of the Midianites: warfare by wiles, by seduction, by deception. The world does not often come to us and say, "Hate God and abandon your faith." It comes and says, "Come to our party. Look at our beautiful daughters. Bow down to our tolerant, inclusive gods. It's no big deal." The world wants to seduce the church into spiritual harlotry, to get us to compromise our holiness, to adopt its morality, to blend our worship with its idolatries. And when the church begins to sleep with the world, she finds herself bowing before the world's gods.
We are commanded to be hostile to this. We are to "make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Rom 13:14). We are to be hostile to every deceptive trick and every wile of the devil. This requires the zeal of Phinehas. It requires a hatred for sin, both in our own lives and in the church. We must be willing to take a spear to those things that profane the presence of God among us. We must recognize that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). The Midianites offered a friendship that led to death. We must reject such offers and maintain our consecrated separation to the Lord, who bought us with a price. Our fight is not with flesh and blood, but with the spiritual powers of wickedness that use the same old tricks of Peor to this day.