Their iniquitous practices did that for Israel which all the enchantments of Balaam could not do—they separated them from God. By swift-coming judgments the people were awakened to the enormity of their sin. A terrible pestilence broke out in the camp, to which tens of thousands speedily fell a prey. God commanded that the leaders in this apostasy be put to death by the magistrates. This order was promptly obeyed. The offenders were slain, then their bodies were hung up in sight of all Israel that the congregation, seeing the leaders so severely dealt with, might have a deep sense of God’s abhorrence of their sin and the terror of His wrath against them. (PP 455.1) MC VC

All felt that the punishment was just, and the people hastened to the tabernacle, and with tears and deep humiliation confessed their sin. While they were thus weeping before God, at the door of the tabernacle, while the plague was still doing its work of death, and the magistrates were executing their terrible commission, Zimri, one of the nobles of Israel, came boldly into the camp, accompanied by a Midianitish harlot, a princess “of a chief house in Midian,”(Numbers 25:15) whom he escorted to his tent. Never was vice bolder or more stubborn. Inflamed with wine, Zimri declared his “sin as Sodom,”(Isaiah 3:9) and gloried in his shame. The priests and leaders had prostrated themselves in grief and humiliation, weeping “between the porch and the altar,”(Ezekiel 8:16; Joel 2:17) and entreating the Lord to spare His people, and give not His heritage to reproach, when this prince in Israel flaunted his sin in the sight of the congregation, as if to defy the vengeance of God and mock the judges of the nation. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the high priest, rose up from among the congregation, and seizing a javelin, “he went after the man of Israel into the tent,”(Numbers 25:8) and slew them both. Thus the plague was stayed, while the priest who had executed the divine judgment was honored before all Israel, and the priesthood was confirmed to him and to his house forever. (PP 455.2) MC VC

Phinehas “hath turned My wrath away from the children of Israel,”(Numbers 25:11) was the divine message; “wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace: 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.” Numbers 25:12, 13. (PP 455.3) MC VC