In Numbers, chapter twenty-five, verse eleven, Phinehas’ holy anger reacted to the moral degeneration and idolatry among God’s people. His exceptional zeal for God’s honor was evident in his love of righteousness and hatred of sin, as God Himself shows His enthusiasm typifies the enthusiasm of Christ for God’s holiness. The Lord gave Phinehas the promise of “an everlasting priesthood.” To be sincerely zealous for the Lord’s sake is always rewarded with great blessings from God. Israel’s idolatry reveals the intensity of God’s displeasure with the heads or leaders of His covenant people.
The Lord told Moses to take the heads of the people, the princes of the tribes, not to hang them, but to judge those that worshipped Peor. Though some think the princes have sinned, ordered to be taken and execute, and made public examples. However, some might be guilty of the above sins, yet not all of them. The ones that are guilty of idolatry: the heads of the people were to assemble at some proper place, the court of judicature, and order the delinquents to be before them. Then try, judge, and condemn those they found guilty, and hang them somewhere near the tabernacle and before it, having neglected the worship of God there, and served an idol.
The punishment was to be done openly in the daytime so that all might see and fear. If the sun the guilty worshipped as an idol, the violaters were hanged against the sun to show that the icon they worshipped could not deliver them. However, in the face of it, and as it were in defiance, they ordered to hang them up. The arrangement may be in the morning against the rising sun, where they hung them all day and brought them down at sunset.
The fierce anger of the Lord against those of Israel signifies how God expects His people to be pure and not contaminate themselves with the sinful environment. He did not want corruption to spread to the remaining Israelites that did not submit to idolatry.