Phinehas and the Javelin

Reading:   Numbers 25

Up to this point there have been several instances where the Israelites have been warned against the wiles of women outside of the daughters of Israel.  They were continually warned that if they gave in to these woman they would eventually forsake their God and bow down to the idols worshipped by their respective paramours.  This "plague," as they called it, reared its ugly head again as the Israelites stayed in the land of Moab for an extended period of time.  The following verses occurred after an Israelite man displayed his girlfriend, or possibly wife, a Midianitish woman, before Moses...

NUMBERS 25:7-8

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; 

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. 

Moses didn't say a single word and yet Phinehas took it upon himself to exact the judgement of God swiftly and without hesitation.  Like the man collecting sticks on the sabbath or the poor sod who took the Lord's name in vain, punishment was death.  There was no room for discussion or debate just swift action.  The commandments were plain and required immediate reaction to those who trespassed against them, to ignore such rebelliousness was also a sin - this was the only way to maintain obedience in such a vast populous.

You are the man Phinehas!  You go on the wall with my other favorite javelin wielders, Teancum (see Three Generals and a Judge), and Bruce Jenner before the Kardasian's.

~Kipling