"Ungrateful Betrayal"

Scripture Passage

Numbers 25-26:65

(One Representation of Baal)

Scripture Focus

While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove, some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with local Moabite women. These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, so the Israelites feasted with them and worshiped the gods of Moab. In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the LORD’s anger to blaze against his people. (Numbers 25:1-3 NLT)

Observation

Yeah, I know—if today’s passage were a movie, no one under 17 would be admitted without a parent or guardian. (One more evidence that those who consider the Bible prudish probably haven’t read it!)

The thing to know about today’s passage is that it wasn’t “just” the sexual relations going on that were problematic—though the Scriptures clearly confine sexual activity to the marriage relationship, and that wasn’t the case here. The problem was that what’s happening here was the worship of a foreign, false god!

Canaanite pagan worship often involved what’s called “sympathetic” magic—acting out in ways you wish to prompt the worshipped god to act. (Voodoo dolls are an example of this.) So in a culture where both seed and livestock had to reproduce in order for society to survive, temple prostitution and ritual sexual acts were part of the worship of (in this case) the false god Baal. “In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor…” (Numbers 25:3 NLT)

The same thing happens in verse 6—though the language is stronger than what’s represented in some translations. This act involves not just “a” Midianite woman but specifically “the” Midianite woman—likely the high priestess of this false faith. And it may not be “his” tent the woman was brought into, but “the” tent—the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle—at which this heinous act took place…in the sight of Moses and all the people as God’s judgment was still being carried out from the previous offense! The more you know, the more reasonable Phinehas’ actions seem to be.

So the grumbling against God that has characterized so much of the Israelites’ existence since leaving Egypt has now shifted to the worship of false gods. It makes me wonder how much the latter is a product of the former—how much Israel’s failure to maintain an “attitude of gratitude” (when they had every reason to be eternally grateful) helped spur them towards the disloyalty they show here to the one true God who had so lovingly “carried them on eagles wings and brought them to himself” (Exodus 19:4).

And, yep, I wonder about myself…about the ways I fail to live in gratitude to God for His manifold blessings and—as a result—fall to easily into shifting loyalties towards false and foreign gods.