Numbers 25:6–9, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Numbers 25:6–9
Phinehas Kills Zimri and Cozbi as the Plague Ends
While the congregation weeps, a man brings a woman in sight of all
One of the children of Israel comes and brings a Midianite woman to his brethren in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation, who are weeping before the door of the tent of meeting. The previous unit's command to kill has not yet produced a settled public response. Grief and plague are the atmosphere of this arrival.
Phinehas follows them and kills both; the plague is then said to stop
Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, sees it, rises from the congregation, takes a javelin in his hand, goes after the man into the inner tent, and thrusts both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague is stayed from the children of Israel. Those that died in the plague are twenty and four thousand.
The narrator joins a priestly grandson's spear to the end of a mass death. The couple are later named; here they are an Israelite man and a Midianite woman killed together in a tent. The scene is lethal, sexualized in its targeting, and without trial. It does not teach clergy to prove zeal with a weapon, and it does not authorize vigilante killing, honor killing, attacks on mixed couples, or blaming a disease on a woman.
How this should shape us
Do not take a spear into your own hands and call it faithfulness. A plague total and a stopped outbreak do not baptize killing two people without hearing. If a community faces public breach, use truthful naming and due process. Phinehas is not a model for street justice.
Teach it back
Explain Numbers 25:6–9 in your own words. Include its place in Numbers' movement from Sinai to Moab, both movements within this thought unit, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters debate how many rebellion stories were combined, the justice of each claim, motives, source layers, miracle and death descriptions, leadership ideology, and the ethics of punishment. Visible questions must not be replaced with invented certainty. For “Phinehas Kills Zimri and Cozbi as the Plague Ends,” confidence is strongest in the received unit's stated sequence and literary function; source, date, demography, geography, mechanism, archaeology, and historical reconstruction remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Numbers 25:6–9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 25:6–9
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 25:6–9
Supports: Moab movement, law, leadership transition, land, war, women, refuge, and compositional framing.
Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 2, complete two-page study guide sections on Balaam, Baal Peor, second census, women and inheritance, war with Midian, Transjordan, itinerary, boundaries, Levite and refuge cities, and final inheritance, applied to Numbers 25:6–9
Supports: Narrative violence, later reinterpretation, named victims, zeal, authority, and non-vigilante ethical boundary.
TheTorah, “Sedition at Moab: Josephus' Reading of the Phinehas Story,” complete Numbers 25 comparison with Josephus, including sex, worship, public killing, plague, zeal, and peace-covenant reception, applied to Numbers 25:6–9
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Numbers 25:6–9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Numbers
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project
Open Scriptures, release 2.2, 2021
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 25:6–9
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Numbers with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, source files dated 2026-08-08
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 25:6–9
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Numbers Part 2
Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Moab movement, law, leadership transition, land, war, women, refuge, and compositional framing.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 2, complete two-page study guide sections on Balaam, Baal Peor, second census, women and inheritance, war with Midian, Transjordan, itinerary, boundaries, Levite and refuge cities, and final inheritance, applied to Numbers 25:6–9
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open violence and reception study
Sedition at Moab: Josephus' Reading of the Phinehas Story
TheTorah.com named scholarly contributor
TheTorah.com, 2019
Supports: Narrative violence, later reinterpretation, named victims, zeal, authority, and non-vigilante ethical boundary.
Exact location: TheTorah, “Sedition at Moab: Josephus' Reading of the Phinehas Story,” complete Numbers 25 comparison with Josephus, including sex, worship, public killing, plague, zeal, and peace-covenant reception, applied to Numbers 25:6–9
Open source ↗