Numbers 25:4-6 New English Translation
God’s Punishment
4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders[a] of the people, and hang them up[b] before the Lord in broad daylight,[c] so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.” 5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you must execute those of his men[d] who were joined to Baal Peor.”
6 Just then[e] one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers[f] a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of[g] the whole community of the Israelites, while they[h] were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
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- Numbers 25:4 sn The meaning must be the leaders behind the apostasy, for they would now be arrested. They were responsible for the tribes’ conformity to the Law, but here they had not only failed in their duty, but had participated. The leaders were executed; the rest of the guilty died by the plague.
- Numbers 25:4 sn The leaders who were guilty were commanded by God to be publicly exposed by hanging, probably a reference to impaling, but possibly some other form of harsh punishment. The point was that the swaying of their executed bodies would be a startling warning for any who so blatantly set the Law aside and indulged in apostasy through pagan sexual orgies.
- Numbers 25:4 tn Heb “in the sun.” This means in broad daylight.
- Numbers 25:5 tn Heb “slay—a man his men.” The imperative is plural, and so “man” is to be taken collectively as “each of you men.”
- Numbers 25:6 tn The verse begins with the deictic particle וְהִנֵּה (vehinneh), pointing out the action that was taking place. It stresses the immediacy of the action to the reader.
- Numbers 25:6 tn Or “to his family”; or “to his clan.”
- Numbers 25:6 tn Heb “before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of.”
- Numbers 25:6 tn The vav (ו) at the beginning of the clause is a disjunctive because it is prefixed to the nonverbal form. In this context it is best interpreted as a circumstantial clause, stressing that this happened “while” people were weeping over the sin.
New English Translation (NET)
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