You wouldn’t think a hot-blooded killer would be immortalized in the Psalms. But one writer, recounting the history of Israel and the ways they disobeyed the Lord, added this story:

They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; they aroused the Lord’s anger by their wicked deeds, and a plague broke out among them. But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.

Phinehas intervened and stopped the plague by killing an Israelite man and his Midianite lover. Despite God’s stark warnings against sexual acts with the locals, this couple paraded arm in arm in front of Moses and all the people who were begging God to stop a deadly illness sweeping the camp.

The paramours, either oblivious or brazen or stupid, found a tent and closed the flap. A moment later Phinehas stepped in and drove a spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach, killing them both.

I am not making this up. The Bible contains some crazy stories, and a priest harpooning two people having sex in order to quell the Lord’s anger is one of the craziest.

Sounds like harsh justice, but what does this story tell us about the Lord? At that time in history, Israel enjoyed a special relationship with God. A chosen nation, the Lord protected them with a cloud by day and fire by night. He delivered them from Egypt, parted the Red Sea, and even fed them with manna from heaven.

God stayed very, very close, and God is very, very holy.

To thumb one’s nose at God in that situation resulted in dire repercussions. Don’t forget that people were suffering and dying all around. Justice was served by those two perishing instead of thousands more.

Still, it’s hard to wrap my mind around this vignette. But it reminds me that God is holy, and he does not look away from those who flaunt his ways or harm his people.

Psalm 106 & Numbers 25 in Through the Bible in 2024

The picture is from a 9th-century manuscript depicting Phinehas killing Zimri and Cozbi