IBhayibheli

 

Numbers 25

Funda

   

1 And Israel dwelt in Shittim, and the people began to commit·​·harlotry with the daughters of Moab.

2 And they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed·​·down to their gods.

3 And Israel knotted· himself ·together to Baal-peor; and the anger of Jehovah was·​·fierce against Israel.

4 And Jehovah said to Moses, Take all the head men of the people, and hang· them ·up before Jehovah in·​·front·​·of the sun, that the fierce anger of Jehovah may be turned·​·back from Israel.

5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Kill ye each·​·man his men who were knotted·​·together to Baal-peor.

6 And, behold, a man of the sons of Israel came and offered to his brothers a Midianitish woman in the eyes of Moses, and in the eyes of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they were weeping before the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation.

7 And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, and he rose·​·up from the midst of the congregation, and took a lance in his hand;

8 and he came after the man of Israel into the place·​·of·​·scortation, and thrust· the two of them ·through, the man of Israel, and the woman for her scortation. And the striking* was restrained from on the sons of Israel.

9 And those who died in the striking were four and twenty thousand.

10 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,

11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned·​·back My fury from upon the sons of Israel, when he was zealous in My zeal in the midst of them, and I consumed· not ·all of the sons of Israel in My zeal.

12 Therefore say, Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace;

13 and it shall be for him, and for his seed after him, even the covenant of an eternal priesthood; that he was·​·zealous for his God, and made·​·atonement for the sons of Israel.

14 And the name of the man of Israel smitten, who was smitten with the Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a chief of a house of a father of the Simeonites.

15 And the name of the Midianitish woman who was smitten was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was head over a people, the house of a father in Midian.

16 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,

17 Be·​·an·​·adversary against the Midianite, and smite them;

18 for they were adversaries to you with their plots, with which they plotted against you over the matter of Peor, and over the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a chief of Midian, their sister, who was smitten in the day of the striking on·​·account·​·of the matter of Peor.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

Amazwana

 

Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.