WEEKLY
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An
international Sunday school lesson commentary
For
Sunday November 5, 2017
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FAITHFUL
GOD, UNFAITHFUL PEOPLE
(Honor
GOD by pursuing HIS heart)
(Numbers
25:10-13 and 1 Samuel 2:30-36)
In
Numbers 25, while the Israelites were still camped at Acacia in Moab, some of
the Israelite men defiled themselves by sleeping with some of the Moabite
women, who had invited them to attend sacrificial ceremonies to their idol god,
“Baal of Peor”. And although Balaam had been unable to curse the people of
Israel earlier (Number 24), he was able to play a role in their seduction by
Moab.
“Sex”, whether “moral” or “immoral” was an
intricate part of Baal worship due to its claims of being able to increase
one’s fertility through sacrifice to, and worship of, the idol god. The idea of
having multiple sexual relationships with foreign women was appealing to the
men of Israel, and so, because of their sexual weaknesses and lust, it didn’t
take much convincing to get them to experiment in this fornication with Baal, against
GOD.
GOD’s anger, however, naturally blazed
against those of HIS people who had joined with the Moabites in worshipping
Baal at their shrines, and HE issued a command to HIS servant Moses to seize
all of the ringleaders, and execute them in the light of day, so that all could
see HIS hand of judgment on Israel, and be turned away from this wickedness
against HIM.
And so Moses ordered Israel’s judges to
execute all the men who had fornicated, both physically and spiritually,
against GOD, and surprisingly, while in midst of carrying out those executions,
an Israelite man named Zimri, actually brought a Moabite woman named Cozbi, who
was a prostitute, into the Israelites camp, and took her to his tent and began
having sex with her.
However, when Phinehas the priest, the son
of Eleazar, saw what was happening, he rose up and left the assembly where the
people were meeting at the Tabernacle to weep for those who were being executed,
and he ran to the man’s tent with a spear, and thrust it through his back, and
into the women stomach, killing them both. At that very moment the plague of
executions was lifted by the LORD, but not before over 24,000 people had been
killed.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Phinehas, son of Eleazar, and grandson of
Aaron the priest has turned MY anger away from the Israelites by displaying
passionate zeal among them on MY behalf. So I have stopped destroying all
Israel as I had intended to do in MY anger. So tell him that I AM making MY
special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, he and his descendants will
be priests for all time, because he was zealous for his GOD and made atonement
for the people of Israel” (Vs.11-13) NLT.
Note the specifics and details that are given
to us concerning the main culprits in this passage, “Zimri” and “Cozbi”. Here
in verses 14-15 we are told that Zimri was the son of Salu, who was the leader
of a family within the tribe of Simeon, and that Cozbi was the daughter of Zur,
the leader of a Midianite clan. Not only does this denote that this was a very
public matter, but perhaps the entire incident of these executions (24,000
killed) would explain the sharp drop-off in the Simeonite male population between
the time of the first census in Numbers 1:23 (59,000), and the count given to
us later in Numbers 26:14 (22,200), after this incident had occurred.
Also, because of Cozbi’s participation in
this idolatrous act against the only true GOD, in verses 16-18, GOD directs HIS
servant Moses to attack and destroy the Midianites because they “assaulted” the
Israelites with deceit, and “tricked” them into worshipping Baal of Peor (a
fertility god), through sexual acts of sacrifice. And so the “misleaders (Moab)”,
as well as “those who chose to follow anti-GOD activities (Israel)”, were all
punished with death.
Over in 1 Samuel 2, taking up at verse 27,
we see that the promise that GOD had made concerning Phinehas, the son of Eleazar,
in the 12th century B.C., was re-iterated here, some 200 years later,
where GOD decides that HE has had enough of Ithamar’s descendants, Eli and his
sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who had thoroughly defiled the Tabernacle, after it
was moved to Shiloh in those later days (10th century B.C.).
One day a prophet came to Eli and revealed
to him that his branch of the descendants of Aaron and the tribe of Levi has
been rejected by GOD because they had failed to honor HIM in their service as
priests at the Tabernacle. The prophet also told Eli that all of the members of
his immediate family would die before their time, and none would live to see a
ripe old age. In fact, his sons Hophni and Phinehas would both die on the same
day, as judgment for the wickedness that they had done in the Tabernacle at
Shiloh (Vs.27-33).
And so the priesthood was eventually taken
away from Abiathar, Eli’s descendant in the line of Ithamar (1 Kings 2:27), and
given to Zadok, a descendant of Phinehas’ and Aaron’s son Eleazar, by King
Solomon in the 6th century B.C. GOD blesses with honor, only those
who honor HIM, but HE despises those who despise HIM (or dishonor HIM in their
positions in the Church of CHRIST JESUS) (1 Samuel 2:30.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
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