One of my favourite narratives in the Old Testament is that of Num 25 and Phinehas (cf. Psa 106:30-31). One reason why is that the theology of this narrative, and its reception, refutes Reformed theology (see Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness; cf. John Murray on Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 106:31). Commenting on this narrative, Yael Shemesh wrote the following:
Privy parts
After Dinah’s rape by Shechem, her
brothers adopt a stratagem to facilitate avenging her honor. They demand that
all the men of the town undergo circumcision as a precondition for a part
between the two sides. This makes it possible for Simeon and Levi to kill all
of them on the third day, “when they were sore” (Gen. xxiv 13-26). Circumcision
applies to the organ with which Shechem had sinned and constitutes a sort of
inverted rape performed by the brothers on the resides of the city whose prince
had raped their sister.
We may have a case of punishment of
a woman’s sexual organs in the story of Phinehas’ zealotry when he pierces Cozbi
the daughter of Zur through her body (קֳבָתָהּ) (Num. xxv 8). Assuming that
the transgression of Zimri son of Salu and Cozbi was sexual (see Num. xxxi
15-18), and that קֳבָתָהּ means “her belly” (see Deut. xviii 3)—the NJPS and
NRSV rendering—or even “her groin” (Jerusalem Bible)—Phinehas aims his blow at
the inner organ that was implicated by Cozbi’s adultery. The Talmudic sages
carry this even further and apply it to Zimri as well: “He [Phinehas] succeeded
[in driving his spear] exactly through the sexual organs of the man and the
woman” (The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 82, 2 [ed. I. Epstein]). (Yael
Shemesh, “Punishment of the Offending Organ in Biblical Literature,” Vetus
Testamentum 55 no. 3 [July 2005]: 350)
Another common translation of קֳבָתָהּ
is “her shrine.” Based on etymology, qevah and qovah have to
refer to a hollow or penetrable organ—which pretty much limits them to stomach,
uterus, or vagina. Note the rendering of the ancient versions: LXX, in
mêtras (= womb); Vulgate, in locis genitalibus. Clearly the choice
of the owrd was dictated by the use of qubbah in the first half of the
verse. (Ibid., 350 n. 30)
