Numbers

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Chapter 25

1 When Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab. 2 These women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods.⁠ 3 When Israel joined themselves to Baal Peor, the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel.⁠ 4 The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders of the people, and hang them up before the Lord in broad daylight,⁠ 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 who were joined to Baal Peor.” 6 Just then one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of the whole community of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand, 8 and went after the Israelite man into the tent and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. So the plague was stopped from the Israelites. 9 Those that died in the plague were 24,000.⁠ 10 The Lord spoke to Moses: 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites,⁠ when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. 12 Therefore, announce: ‘I am going to give to him my covenant of peace.⁠ 13 So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood,⁠ because he has been zealous for his God, and has made atonement for the Israelites.’” 14 Now the name of the Israelite who was stabbed—the one who was stabbed with the Midianite woman—was Zimri son of Salu, a leader of a clan of the Simeonites. 15 The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur. He was a leader over the people of a clan of Midian. 16 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 17 “Bring trouble to the Midianites, and destroy them, 18 because they bring trouble to you by their treachery with which they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague that happened as a result of Peor.”

Texts in conversation

Did 24,000 or 23,000 Die in the Plague at Baal Peor?

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

Summary

Numbers records that 24,000 died in the plague after Israel's incident at Baal Peor, but in 1 Corinthians, Paul says 23,000 died. The difference of 1000 has puzzled interpreters, with some suggesting Paul relies on a different tradition or source.

Passages

Numbers 25:9

Hebrew Bible

7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand, 8 and went after the Israelite man into the tent and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. So the plague was stopped from the Israelites. 9 Those that died in the plague were 24,000. 10 The Lord spoke to Moses: 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal.

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

1 Corinthians 10:8

New Testament

6 These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did. 7 So do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 And let us not be immoral, as some of them were, and 23,000 died in a single day. 9 And let us not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes. 10 And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Corinthians

References

"... In 1 Corinthians 10:8, Paul says that 23,000 died in the incident of Baal Peor. However, Numbers 25:9 states that 24,000 died. ‘The case of the missing thousand’ has long preoccupied the minds of interpreters down the centuries. Most conservative interpreters have attempted to harmonize Paul and Numbers arguing either that Paul rounded down the number or that Numbers rounded it up. The problem here is that both are round numbers, and in any case poses the question as to how Numbers/Paul knew that the number ought to be rounded up/down. Other commentators have assumed that Paul made a mistake and recorded 23,000 from Numbers 26:62, where the 23,000 was the number of the Levites in the census. This creates the additional difficulty as to whether Paul’s memory really was so poor, and if so whether he or his secretary did not check and correct the draft. Thus, Gordon Fee concludes that the infamous ‘case of the missing thousand’ has no ‘entirely satisfactory solution’ ... I shall argue that Paul was not referring to a plague, that is, a disease sent by God but rather to a slaughter by the sword carried out by men, with Paul linking the Golden Calf and Baal Peor incidents together. This reading comes from a deduction implicit in Numbers 25:4-5 where Moses instructed the judges to slay the Israelites involved in idolatry, and linguistic and thematic links with Exodus 32. In this reading, Paul stood within interpretative traditions that existed in early Judaism ..."

Rohintan Mody, “The Case of the Missing Thousand: Paul's Use of the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 10:8—A New Proposal,” Churchman (2017): 61–79.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Numbers36 chapters

Did 24,000 or 23,000 Die in the Plague at Baal Peor?

Summary

Passages

Numbers 25:9

1 Corinthians 10:8

References

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