XXV. ZIMRI, SON OF SALU, AND THE PLAGUE THE VERACITY OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES

In the consequences which followed from this evil counsel of Balaam, I fancy I discover another instance of coincidence without design. It is this.—As a punishment for the sin of the Israelites in partaking of the worship of Baal-Peor, God is said to have sent a Plague upon them. Who were the leaders in this defection from the Almighty, and in this shameless adoption of the abomination of the Moabites, is not disclosed—nor indeed whether any one tribe were more guilty before God than the rest—only it is said that the number of “those who died in the Plague was twenty and four thousand.” [Num. 25:9.] I read, however, that the name of a certain Israelite that was slain on that occasion (who in the general humiliation and mourning defied, as it were, the vengeance of the Most High, and determined, at all hazards to continue in the lusts to which the idolatry had led), I read, I say, that “the name of this Israelite that was slain, even that was slain with the Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites.” [Num. 25:14.] And very great importance is attached to this act of summary punishment—as though this one offender, a prince of a chief house of his tribe, was a representative of the offence of many—for on Phinehas, in his holy indignation, putting him to instant death, the Plague ceased. “So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.” [Num. 25:8.]

Shortly after this a census of the people is taken. All the tribes are numbered, and a separate account is given of each. Now in this I observe the following particular—that, although on comparing this census with the one which had been made nearly forty years before at Sinai, it appears that the majority of the tribes had meanwhile increased in numbers, and none of them very materially diminished [Comp. Num. 1. and 26.] , the tribe of Simeon had lost almost two-thirds of its whole body, being reduced from “fifty-nine thousand and three hundred,” [Num. 1:23.] to “twenty-two thousand and two hundred.” [Num. 26:14.] No reason is assigned for this extraordinary depopulation of this one tribe—no hint whatever is given as to its eminence in suffering above its fellows. Nor can I pretend to say that we can detect the reason with any certainty of being right, though the fact speaks for itself that the tribe of Simeon must have experienced disaster beyond the rest. Yet it does seem very natural to think, that, in the recent Plague, the tribe to which Zimri belonged, who is mentioned as a leading person in it with great emphasis, was the tribe upon which the chief fury of the scourge fell—as having been that which had been the chief transgressors in the idolatry.

Moreover, that such was the case, I am further inclined to believe from another circumstance. One of the last great acts which Moses was commissioned to perform before his death, has a reference to this very affair of Baal-Peor. “Avenge the children of Israel,” says God to him, “of the Midianites; afterward thou shalt be gathered unto thy people.” [Num. 31:2.] Moses did so: but before he actually was gathered to his people, and while the recent extermination of this guilty nation must have been fresh in his mind, he proceeds to pronounce a parting blessing on the tribes. Now it is singular, and except upon some such supposition as this I am maintaining, unaccountable, that whilst he deals out the bounties of earth and heaven with a prodigal hand upon all the others, the tribe of Simeon he passes over in silence, and none but the tribe of Simeon—for this he has no blessing [Deut. 33:6. It is nothing but fair to state that the reading of the Codex Alexandr. is “Let Reuben live and not die, and let Simeon be many in number.” This reading, however, the Codex Vaticanus, the rival MS. of the Alexandrine, and at least its equal in authority, does not recognise; neither is it found in the Hebrew text, nor in any of the various readings of that text as given by Dr. Kennicott—nor in the Samaritan—nor in the early Versions. It is difficult to believe that the name of Simeon should have been omitted, in so many instances, by mistake; whilst it is easy to suppose that it might have been introduced in some one instance by design, the transcriber not being aware of any cause for the exclusion of this one tribe, and saying, “Peradventure, it is an oversight.” Moreover, the blessing of Reuben thus curtailed, “Let Reuben live, and not die,” seems tame, and unworthy the party and the occasion.] —an omission which should seem to have some meaning, and which does in fact, as I apprehend, point to this same matter of Baal-Peor. For if that was pre-eminently the offending tribe, nothing could be more likely than that Moses, fresh, as I have said, from the destruction of the Midianites for their sin, should remember their principal partners in it too, and should think it hard measure to slay the one and forthwith bless the other. Nor can I help remarking, in further support of this conjecture, that the little consideration paid to this tribe by their brethren shortly afterwards, in the allotment of the portions of the Holy Land, implies it to have been in disgrace—their inheritance being only the remnant of that assigned to the children of Judah, which was too much for them [Josh. 19:9.] ; and so inadequate to their wants did it prove, that in aftertimes they sent forth a colony even to Mount Seir.

Admitting, then, the fact to be as I have supposed, it supports (as in so many other cases already mentioned) the credibility of a miracle. For the name of the audacious offender points incidentally to the offending tribe—the extraordinary diminution of that tribe points to some extraordinary cause of the diminution—the pestilence presents itself as a probable cause—and if the real cause, then it becomes the judicial punishment of a transgression, a miracle wrought by God (as Moses would have it), in token that his wrath was kindled against Israel.