Tuesday, August 10, 2021

John W. Welch on the Chiastic Structure of Numbers 25

One of my favourite Old Testament figures is Phinehas, in part as what we read in Num 25/Psa 106:30-31 destroys Protestant theologies of salvation. For more on this, see Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness and John Murray on Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 106:31.

 

 

On the chiastic structure of Num 25 and Phineas, John W. Welch wrote the following:

 

Phineas, a grandson of Aaron the High Priest, spontaneously took the law into his own hand and killed Zimri, the son of a Simeonite prince, and his consort Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite chief, who in plain sight had defiantly come into the camp together and apparently committed sacrilege, being together after such relationships had been forbidden. God had commanded the people to abate this apostasy and hang the heads of offending people up before the Lord. This account in Num 25 is structured chiastically:

 

A the people commit whoredoms and idolatry in the matter of Baal-Peor, and Moses commands that everyone who had committed these crimes be killed. (1-5)

 

B the flagrant appearance together of an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and all the people. (6)

 

C the bold action of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, piercing the offending man of Israel and the Midianite woman with his javelin. (7-8)

 

D the plague was averted for most, but only after twenty-four thousand had died of the plague. (8-9)

 

C’ the zealous action of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, turned back the wrath of the Lord from the children of Israel. (10-11)

 

B’ Moses is told to pronounce a covenant of peace with the people (12-13), and the names of Zimri and Cozbi are given. (14-15)

 

A’ a mandate given to vex the Midianites (twice) because of their guile in the matter of Peor (mentioned twice). (16-18)

 

What does chiasmus contribute legally to this narrative? The text centers on a positive view of Phinehas’s preservation of the people of Israel, whose condition was in serious difficulty, with twenty-four thousand having already died of the plague. By positioning at its center the fact that the plague ceased, the chiastic arrangement recognizes God’s ratification of Phinehas’s exceptional conduct.

 

By framing this central point with particular facts of legal significance, the narrative also justifies Phinehas in this extraordinary homicide. An unusual state of emergency clearly faced the entire nation, implicitly invoking the rare biblical principle that it is better for on man to perish than the entire people be destroyed. Phinehas acted suddenly and spontaneously, a mitigating factor mentioned in the law codes in Exod 21 and Num 35. Phinehas had not been lying in wait to entrap or deceive Zimri and Cozbi, whose guilt was open and conspicuously obvious to all. Their defiant conduct went consciously contrary to Moses’s public command and explicit warning at the beginning of the narrative. In the end, the case concludes with Moses pronouncing a covenant of peace between God and the people and doubly commanding them to vex the Midianites.

 

In this homicide case, chiasmus serves as a figure of thought, “a powerful engine for organizing, inflecting and generating ideas” (Hariman, “What is Chiasmus,” 48). Decisions in hard legal cases, especially homicides, call for strong articulations that persuade and communicate details that might otherwise elude notice. (John W. Welch, “Narrating Homicide Chiastically,” in John W. Welch and Donald W. Parry, eds., Chiasmus: The State of the Art [Provo, Utah: BYU Studies and Book of Mormon Central,2010], 151-76, here, pp. 158-59)