Ps. cvi. 30. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment ; and so the plague was staged3-.
TO enter profitably into this subject, it will be necessary that I state, in few words, the history to which my text refers.
Balaam had been invited by Balak, King of Moab, to come and curse Israel, whose approach he dreaded, and whom he hoped by these means to subdue. Balaam, " coveting the wages of unrighteousness," thought to enrich himself by executing the wishes of the king of Moab ; but was overruled by God to bless the very people whom he was hired to curse. Accordingly he was dismissed without the expected reward. But, with a view of obtaining the promised recompence, he struck out another way in which Balak might ultimately gain his end. He knew, that, if Israel could be ensnared to cast off their allegiance to God, they might lose his protection, and thus fall an easy prey to their enemies. He advised therefore, that Balak should facilitate an intercourse between the Moabitish women and Israel ; and thus draw the people of Israel into an illicit connexion with them. And this once established, the Israelites would, in all probability, be led to attend the Moabitish women to their sacred feasts ; and thus, by conforming to their habits, they would, in a short time, be seduced to a participation with them in their idolatrous rites.
In this advice Balaam had but too well succeeded ; and almost the whole of Israel were thus drawn into the sins of fornication and idolatry : to punish which, Jehovah had inflicted on them a plague, whereby no less than three and twenty thousand Israelites were slain. To avert the anger of the Most High, Moses issued an order, that the judges of Israel should " slay all those who had joined themselves to Baal-Peor, the god of Moab, and hang them up
a Numb. xxv. 13. " He was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel," would be a good text for this sermon.
VOL. vi. q