🔢WEB · Numbers 25:2
What does Numbers 25:2 mean?
"for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods."
— Numbers 25:2 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab;
for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods.
Israel joined himself to Baal Peor. Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to Yahweh before the sun, that the fierce anger of Yahweh may turn away from Israel.”
Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.”
Explanation
Numbers 25:2 describes a moment of religious and moral collapse among the Israelites. The verse says simply that Moabite women invited the Israelite men to the sacrificial feasts of their gods, and the men not only ate the sacrificial food but bowed down in worship to these foreign deities. In plain terms, Israelites who had been set apart to worship the Lord alone began participating in pagan worship rituals, both eating ceremonial meals dedicated to idols and physically prostrating themselves before those idols.
The context is crucial for understanding the weight of this verse. Moses wrote Numbers as Israel neared the end of its wilderness journey, camped at a place called Shittim just before entering the Promised Land. The verse immediately preceding this one explains that Israelite men began having sex
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