🔢WEB · Numbers 25:12
What does Numbers 25:12 mean?
"Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace."
— Numbers 25:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.
Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace.
It shall be to him, and to his offspring after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’”
Now the name of the man of Israel that was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house among the Simeonites.
The name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of a fathers’ house in Midian.
Explanation
Numbers 25:12 records God's direct response to an act of decisive faithfulness by a man named Phinehas. In plain language, the verse is God's announcement that he is granting Phinehas a special covenant — one described as "peace" — as a reward for what Phinehas has just done. The words are brief, but they carry enormous weight: God himself is speaking, promising a lasting relationship of favor and stability to this one man and, as the following verses make clear, to his descendants after him.
The context is essential to understanding the verse. Israel was camped at Shittim, and many of the men had begun engaging in sexual immorality with Moabite and Midianite women, which led them into worshiping the Baal of Peor. This provoked God's anger, and a plague broke out among the people, killing thousands. In the middle of this crisis, an Israelite man brazenly brought a Midianite woman into the camp in open defiance of Moses and the weeping congregation gathered at the tent of meeting. Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, took a spear and killed both the man and the woman in the act, and the plague was stopped
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