The Mystery of Esau and Ephraim

And here the story of Balaam should tie in with an earlier PROPHECY!

“And upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet thou shalt be supple and credulous, and be in subjection to thy brother [Jacob]; but it will be that when his sons [the children of Israel] become evil, and fall from keeping the commandments of the law, thou shalt break his yoke of servitude from off thy neck….and then will I kill Jakob my brother,” Genesis 27:41-42 Jonathan

Numbers 25

¹ And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. — Balak, as well as the princes of Moab, had taken the advice of Balaam:

— the Targum has more explicit details:

“And now, behold, I return to go to my people. Come, I will give thee counsel: Go, furnish tavern houses, and employ seductive women to sell food and drinks cheaply, and to bring this people together to eat and drink, and commit whoredom with them, that they may deny their God; then in a brief time will they be delivered into thy hand, and many of them will fall. Nevertheless, after this they will still have dominion over thy people at the end of days.” Numbers 24:14 Jonathan

² And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. — and they called the people; the the daughters of Moab invited the Israelites to their sacrificial feasts, which were celebrated in honour of Baal-peor, who was worshipped in the city of Beth-peor (Deuteronomy 3:29). He is supposed to be identical with Chemosh, the Moabitish god of war.

³ And Israel joined himself unto Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. — and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; for no sin is more provoking to God than idolatry, that being so directly opposite to his nature, honour, and glory, as well as to his will and worship;

— and hereby the end of Balaam and Balak was, in a great measure, answered, and Balaam obtained that by his evil counsel which he could not by all his conjuring; this was seen by the plague sent among them; Numbers 24:14.

⁴ And the Lord said unto Moses, “Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.” — Take all the heads of the people; the “heads” or “chiefs” of the people or were chief in this transgression; before the Lord; for vindicating the honor of the true God;

— Jonathan has this version:

And the Lord said to Mosheh, Take all the chiefs of the people, and appoint them for judges, and let them give judgment to put to death the people who have gone astray after Peor, and hang them before the Word of the Lord upon the wood over against the morning sun, and at the departure of the sun take them down and bury them and turn away the strong anger of the Lord from Israel.

⁵ And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, “Slay ye every one his men who were joined unto Baal of Peor.” — the offenders were to be first; slain by the hands of “the judges of Israel” Numbers 25:5, and afterward hung up “against the sun” (that is, publicly, openly; compare 2 Samuel 12:12) as an aggravation of their punishment.

⁶ And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. — weeping because the plague Numbers 25:9 had already broken out among the people;

— whilst the whole congregation was assembled before the tabernacle, weeping on account of the divine wrath, there came an Israelite, a prince of the tribe of Simeon, who brought a Midianitish woman, the daughter of a Midianitish chief (Numbers 25:14); to commit adultery with her in his tent;

— earlier, it has been conjectured that the lost portion of the story related that Balaam, who lived among the Midianites, persuaded their daughters to seduce the Israelites into intermarriage with them in order to provoke God’s anger.

⁷ And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; — and when Phinehas, the priest, saw it; saw the man pass by in this impudent manner, and his whore with him; his spirit was stirred up, and with an holy indignation acted against the sin and sinner,

⁸ and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

— so the plague was restrained came to an end from the children of Israel; which had broke out among them and carried off many; even a disease, the pestilence, according to Josephus, it ceasing upon this fact of Phinehas, shows that that was approved of by the Lord.

⁹ And those who died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. — but those already died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.

¹⁰ And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

¹¹ “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned My wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for My sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in My jealousy. — the description of Phinehas, as in Numbers 25:7, is repeated in full, as if to emphasize that he was not a private individual, but one invested with divine authority.

¹² Therefore say: ‘Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace. — Phinehas became high priest after the death of his father Eleazar, and the office;

¹³ And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.’” — for this act of divine zeal the eternal possession of the priesthood was promised to Phinehas and his posterity as God’s covenant of peace, by displaying his zeal in the midst of them;

¹⁴ Now the name of the Israelite who was slain, even who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites. — Zimri, a prince among the Simeonites; the slaughter of a man of such high rank is mentioned as a proof of the undaunted zeal of Phinehas.

¹⁵ And the name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head over a people and of a chief house in Midian. — and the name of the Midianitish woman that was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, one of the five kings of Midian, she was the daughter of a king that came to a prince of the tribe of Simeon, and enticed him to eat of her food, and worship her idols;

— the Targum of Jonathan says she was called Selonae, the daughter of Balak, chief of the nation of Moab, whose habitation was in Midian;

¹⁶ And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, — the Lord now commanded Moses to show hostility to the Midianites, and smite them;

¹⁷ “Vex the Midianites and smite them. — Vex the Midianites, and smite them; the Midianites appear to have been joint actors with the Moabites throughout the whole of the opposition which was offered to Israel, and the chief actors in the wiles by which the Israelites were seduced;

— Vex the Midianites, and smite them. Go to war with them, and smite them with the sword; not just the Moabites, but also the Midianites, especially when they were both confederates against Israel.

¹⁸ For they vex you with their wiles wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain in the day of the plague for Peor’s sake.” — for they vex you with their wiles; not with wars, but with wiles, with cunning stratagems, and artful methods to draw them into sin, that thereby they might be exposed to the wrath of God;

— wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor; the idol Peor, that is, Baalpeor; now the Midianites beguiled the Israelites, by sending their daughters among them, with whom they committed fornication, and by whom they were misguided to worship the idol Peor.

Numbers 26

¹ And it came to pass after the plague that the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, saying, — and it came to pass after the plague; the plague probably destroyed the remnant of the generation which had come out of Egypt, and which had been numbered in the wilderness of Sinai;

— and unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest; the Lord had been used to speak to Moses and Aaron; but now Aaron being dead, and Eleazar his son succeeding him in the priesthood, is joined with Moses, and the order here given is directed to them both.

² “Take the count of all the congregation of the children of Israel from twenty years old and upward throughout their father’s house, all who are able to go to war in Israel.”

— take the sum of all the congregation; they were numbered twice before, Exodus 30:11-12; Numbers 1:1-2. Now they are numbered a third time, to demonstrate the faithfulness of God, both in cutting all those off whom he had threatened to cut off, Numbers 14:29

³ And Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan near Jericho, saying, — in the plains of Moab, by Jordan, near Jericho: or of Jericho, as the same Targum, on the other side of Jordan to that on which Jericho stood; for as yet the children of Israel had not passed that river, nor entered into the land of Canaan, in which Jericho was, but they were now opposite it;

⁴ “Take the count of the people from twenty years old and upward,” as the Lord commanded Moses and the children of Israel who went forth out of the land of Egypt. — take the sum of the people, from twenty years old and upward; at the same age at which the sum was taken before, Numbers 1:3 so that there could not be one that was more than sixty years of age, of all those that went into the land of Canaan, except Joshua and Caleb;

⁵ Reuben, the eldest son of Israel. The children of Reuben: Hanoch, of whom cometh the family of the Hanochites; of Pallu, the family of the Palluites; — the twelve secular tribes are numbered, the sacred tribe of Levi being omitted. The names are based upon Genesis 46:8-27, but with the addition of Ephraim and Manasseh, who, having been born in Egypt, could not be reckoned in Genesis among those who went down into Egypt;

— the order of the tribes is the same, except that Manasseh (Numbers 26:29-34) precedes Ephraim (Numbers 26:35-37).

⁶ of Hezron, the family of the Hezronites; of Carmi, the family of the Carmites.

⁷ These are the families of the Reubenites; and those who were numbered of them were forty and three thousand and seven hundred and thirty. — Reuben 46,730

⁸ And the son of Pallu: Eliab.

⁹ And the sons of Eliab: Nemuel, and Dathan, and Abiram. These are the Dathan and Abiram who were famous in the congregation, who strove against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Korah when they strove against the Lord.

¹⁰ And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah when that company died, the time the fire devoured two hundred and fifty men; and they became a sign.

¹¹ Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not. — notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not; neither of the pestilence, nor by fire, nor by the swallowing up of the earth; they not being in the counsel of their father,

— but followed the doctrine of Moses the prophet, as the Targum of Jonathan; they either disliked their father’s scheme, or, if they engaged with him in it, they repented and departed from him, and were not present when the judgments of God came upon him and his company;

¹² The sons of Simeon according to their families: of Nemuel, the family of the Nemuelites; of Jamin, the family of the Jaminites; of Jachin, the family of the Jachinites;

¹³ of Zerah, the family of the Zarhites; of Shaul, the family of the Shaulites.

¹⁴ These are the families of the Simeonites, twenty and two thousand and two hundred. — the families of Simeon were but five, and the number of them were 22,200;

¹⁵ The children of Gad according to their families: of Zephon, the family of the Zephonites; of Haggi, the family of the Haggites; of Shuni, the family of the Shunites;

¹⁶ of Ozni, the family of the Oznites; of Eri, the family of the Erites;

¹⁷ of Arod, the family of the Arodites; of Areli, the family of the Arelites.

¹⁸ These are the families of the children of Gad according to those who were numbered of them, forty thousand and five hundred. — seven families sprang from Gad, whose number now was 40,500;

¹⁹ The sons of Judah were Er and Onan; and Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.

²⁰ And the sons of Judah according to their families were: of Shelah, the family of the Shelanites; of Perez, the family of the Perezites; of Zerah, the family of the Zarhites. — Perez or Pharez, and Zerah; which answers to Jacob’s blessing, that he should be a praise among his brethren, Genesis 49:8;

— along the historical footpath in the complexities of the house of Judah is the line of Perez or Pharez, and the line of Zerah. The best book to have expounded this riddle is “Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright” by J.H. Allen (1847-1930).

In summary, in parallel with Ezekiel 17, this mysterious prophecy as a form of a riddle to both Judah and Israel, which shows how the planting and rebuilding of David’s throne had survived beyond the captivity.

²¹ And the sons of Perez were: of Hezron, the family of the Hezronites; of Hamul, the family of the Hamulites.

²² These are the families of Judah according to those who were numbered of them, threescore and sixteen thousand and five hundred. — the number of these families of Judah amounted to 76,500;

²³ Of the sons of Issachar according to their families: of Tola, the family of the Tolaites; of Pua, the family of the Punites; — the sons of Issachar, after their families; this tribe was numbered next to Judah, because it was under his standard;

²⁴ of Jashub, the family of the Jashubites; of Shimron, the family of the Shimronites.

²⁵ These are the families of Issachar according to those who were numbered of them, threescore and four thousand and three hundred. — this tribe consisted of four families, and the number of warlike men in it was 64,300;

²⁶ Of the sons of Zebulun according to their families: of Sered, the family of the Sardites; of Elon, the family of the Elonites; of Jahleel, the family of the Jahleelites.

²⁷ These are the families of the Zebulunites according to those who were numbered of them, threescore thousand and five hundred. — it consisted of three families, whose numbers were 60,500;

²⁸ The sons of Joseph according to their families were Manasseh and Ephraim.

²⁹ Of the sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites; and Machir begot Gilead; of Gilead come the family of the Gileadites. — the sons of Joseph, after their families, were Manasseh and Ephraim. Manasseh is here mentioned first, though Ephraim was preferred to him by Jacob, and the standard belonged to him;

— not because Manasseh was the firstborn, but because he had now the greater increase, though he had but one son, Machir, of whom was the family of the Machirites, and a grandson, whose name was Gilead, from whom was the family of the Gileadites;

³⁰ These are the sons of Gilead: of Jeezer, the family of the Jeezerites; of Helek, the family of the Helekites;

³¹ and of Asriel, the family of the Asrielites; and of Shechem, the family of the Shechemites;

³² And of Shemida, the family of the Shemidaites; and of Hepher, the family of the Hepherites.

³³ And Zelophehad the son of Hepher had no sons, but daughters; and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

³⁴ These are the families of Manasseh, and those who were numbered of them, fifty and two thousand and seven hundred. — the number of men in this tribe, Manasseh, of twenty years old and upwards, fit for war, was 52,700;

³⁵ These are the sons of Ephraim according to their families: of Shuthelah, the family of the Shuthalhites; of Becher, the family of the Bachrites; of Tahan, the family of the Tahanites.

³⁶ And these are the sons of Shuthelah: of Eran, the family of the Eranites.

³⁷ These are the families of the sons of Ephraim according to those who were numbered of them, thirty and two thousand and five hundred. These are the sons of Joseph according to their families. — the number of the whole, the families of the sons of Ephraim, was 32,500;

³⁸ The sons of Benjamin according to their families: of Bela, the family of the Belaites; of Ashbel, the family of the Ashbelites; of Ahiram, the family of the Ahiramites;

³⁹ of Shupham, the family of the Shuphamites; of Hupham, the family of the Huphamites.

⁴⁰ And the sons of Bela were Ard and Naaman; of Ard, the family of the Ardites; and of Naaman, the family of the Naamites.

⁴¹ These are the sons of Benjamin according to their families, and those who were numbered of them were forty and five thousand and six hundred. — the number of men in these families was 45,600;

⁴² These are the sons of Dan according to their families: of Shuham, the family of the Shuhamites. These are the families of Dan according to their families.

⁴³ All the families of the Shuhamites, according to those who were numbered of them, were threescore and four thousand and four hundred. — the sons of Dan, after their families, consisted of 64,400 men;

⁴⁴ Of the children of Asher according to their families: of Jimna, the family of the Jimnites; of Jesui, the family of the Jesuites; of Beriah, the family of the Beriites.

⁴⁵ Of the sons of Beriah: of Heber, the family of the Heberites; of Malchiel, the family of the Malchielites.

⁴⁶ And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah.

⁴⁷ These are the families of the sons of Asher according to those who were numbered of them, who were fifty and three thousand and four hundred. — the number of persons in this tribe was 53,400;

⁴⁸ Of the sons of Naphtali according to their families: of Jahzeel, the family of the Jahzeelites; of Guni, the family of the Gunites;

⁴⁹ of Jezer, the family of the Jezerites; of Shillem, the family of the Shillemites.

⁵⁰ These are the families of Naphtali according to their families, and those who were numbered of them were forty and five thousand and four hundred. — and its number was 45,400;

⁵¹ These were the numbered of the children of Israel: six hundred thousand and a thousand seven hundred and thirty. — total: 601,730; a decrease of 1,820 from the number at Sinai; a decrease due to the various plagues.

⁵² And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

⁵³ “Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. — Unto these the land shall be divided; the general apportionment of the land, as regarded the relative position of each tribe, was to be decided by lot, which was commonly looked upon as the determination of God Himself, and in this instance was undoubtedly so.

⁵⁴ To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance: to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those who were numbered of him. — to everyone shall his inheritance be given, according to those that were numbered of him; that is, to every tribe, and so to every family in it, according to the number of men in it;

⁵⁵ Notwithstanding, the land shall be divided by lot; according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. — notwithstanding, the land shall be divided by lot; that the division might appear to be according to the determination and will of God, and not left to the judgment and discretion of the chief magistrate;

⁵⁶ According to the lot shall the possession thereof be divided between many and few.” — between many and few; the share that shall by lot fall to each tribe, shall be distributed to the several families and persons in such proportions as their numbers shall require.

⁵⁷ And these are those who were numbered of the Levites according to their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; of Merari, the family of the Merarites. — Levi was God’s tribe; therefore it was not numbered with the rest, but alone.

⁵⁸ These are the families of the Levites: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korathites. And Kohath begot Amram.

⁵⁹ And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bore to Levi in Egypt; and she bore unto Amram, Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister. — and which Jochebed was the mother of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam;

⁶⁰ And unto Aaron was born Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. — Aaron had four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, the two first of which died for offering strange fire to the Lord, and the two last were now living: from Merari, another son of Levi, sprang two families, the Mahlite, and the Mushite;

⁶¹ And Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord.

⁶² And those who were numbered of them were twenty and three thousand, all males from a month old and upward; for they were not numbered among the children of Israel, because there was no inheritance given them among the children of Israel. — the whole number of the Levites at this time taken was 23,000 males of a month old and upward;

⁶³ These are those who were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who numbered the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan near Jericho.

⁶⁴ But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered when they numbered the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Sinai.

⁶⁵ For the Lord had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. — for the Lord had said of them, they shall surely die in the wilderness; this was warned before them, Numbers 14:32 and now it was fulfilled.

~ by Japheth on March 21, 2024.

Posted in Books of Moses