Numbers 25-26
Dear RTB’ers,
Good morning, folks, and welcome to March! Another RTB month behind us – 22 more to go in Search the Scriptures!
While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. (vv. 25:1-3a) You may recall from Numbers 23:28 that (Mount) Peor was the third location where Balak had taken Balaam to curse Israel. So Baal of Peor was the god of the Moabite people who lived in that region, and the Israelites began to join the locals in worship of this god. We will learn later that it was Balaam who incited the people to this worship of Baal: Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. (Numbers 31:16) Therein we see the judgment of later writers against Balaam.
This incident is the first record of idolatry since the Golden Calf incident at Mount Sinai back in Exodus 32, when it was the ancestors of today’s worshipers who had engaged in that idolatry. They had their failings – grumblings and their listening to the unfaithful spies – but we have no record of further idolatry with that generation. Still, the sins of the fathers…! (Exodus 20:5, 34:7; Numbers 14:18) We will read much more of Israeli idolatry over the next 22 months!
Blessings!
Fred