🔢WEB · Numbers 25:9
What does Numbers 25:9 mean?
"Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand."
— Numbers 25:9 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the middle of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand.
He went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
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.
Explanation
Numbers 25:9 records the grim outcome of a specific incident of divine judgment against Israel: "Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand." In plain terms, this is a body count, a somber statistical footnote to a much larger and more disturbing story that occupies the rest of the chapter. It tells us the human cost of what had just happened
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