Lives of Scripture

Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, is defined by a single decisive act at Baal-peor, where Israelite men were engaging in sexual immorality with Moabite and Midianite women and being drawn into worshiping their gods, bringing a plague on the nation (Numbers 25:1-9). When an Israelite man brazenly brought a Midianite woman into the camp in full view of Moses and the weeping congregation, Phinehas took a spear and killed them both in the act, and the plague, which had already killed twenty-four thousand, immediately stopped (Numbers 25:6-9). God commended Phinehas's zeal for God's honor and granted him and his descendants "a covenant of peace" and "a covenant of a perpetual priesthood," a rare direct divine commendation of a decisive act as covenant loyalty rather than personal vengeance (Numbers 25:10-13). Phinehas later led an Israelite campaign against Midian in judgment for the Baal-peor incident, and still later played a wiser, more diplomatic role, traveling to confront the Transjordan tribes over an altar they had built, only to be satisfied it was meant for worship, not rebellion, averting a civil war (Numbers 31:6; Joshua 22:13-32). Phinehas eventually succeeded his father Eleazar as high priest, and Scripture later notes he was still serving in that role generations afterward (Judges 20:27-28).