The Insanity Defense
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has averted My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I am giving him My covenant of peace; Numbers 25:10-12 NASB
(this is a long one, in time for Shabbat)
My jealousy – “How do you plead?” “Not guilty by reason of religious insanity,” said the attorney, but the defendant interrupted. “Your honor, I was overcome by the spirit and had to kill them. God told me to, and He approved it!” How do you think the trial would go today?
The story of Pinhas (Phinehas) is one of those episodes that liberals love to parade in front of the world as evidence that the Jews and their God are vicious zealots without justifiable ethical standards. You know the tale. Pinhas is incensed by the flagrant idolatry of Israelite men with foreign women. He takes a spear and kills a man and a woman in front of Moses’ tent while the shocked public watches. But instead of being tried as a murderer, God endorses his action and rewards him. Ever since, Pinhas has received rather harsh, and misrepresented, criticism from “ethically-minded” exegetes. Since these critics really attack God’s character, we need to understand exactly what happened here. Let’s start by clearing up the common misperception.
The Enduring Word Commentary is typical of exegetical works that misread the text:
Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation: Phinehas was one among those in Israel who would not accept this wholesale rebellion against God. He brought God’s judgment by thrusting through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman with a spear – seemingly, as they were in the midst of immorality. Allen believes this man was having sex with the Midianite woman right in front of the tabernacle, and the text deliberately obscures this, because it is so offensive.[1]
The Hebrew text does not say that the Israelite man was engaged in coitus with the woman. It is also important to note that the woman was not a Moabite. She was a Midianite (you will soon see why this matters). The context is God’s anger with Israel over involvement with Moabites. While it seems clear that the text condemns Israelite men for engaging in sexual fertility acts with religious prostitutes (Moabites), in this case the Israelite man simply brings a foreign woman (Midianite) into the camp to present to the family. Any other suggestions are speculation.
Now let’s look at the Hebrew College Blog’s assessment:
At the end of Parshat Balak, the Israelites (here, the men) have angered God yet again, by worshiping another god as part of their sexual attraction to Moabite women. Just at this time of estrangement and punishment from God, a time of intense fear and anxiety―“the whole Israelite community… was weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Numbers 25:6)―an Israelite man publicly displays to his companions his Midianite lover, blatantly involving himself in exactly the behavior that has aroused God’s anger.
Pinchas, grandson of Aaron the high priest, takes it upon himself to respond. “[He] saw and he rose from the midst of the community and took a spear in his hand. And he came after the man of Israel …and stabbed the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman…” (Numbers 25: 7-8). The Torah tells us of two consequences to this act of violence. First, at the end of Parshat Balak, the plague, sent as punishment for the people’s sexualized idolatry, ends immediately―which would seem to endorse the act as righteous retribution. Second, at the beginning of Parshat Pinchas, God explicitly tells Moses that Pinchas has acted as the embodiment of God’s own kin’ah”―zeal or passion, or, as the great commentator Rashi understands it, “righteous vengeance” or “destructive anger”. But the Divine voice then continues with a tantalizing sequel: “I hereby grant him briti shalom, My covenant of peace.”
Why would God offer a bond of peace to this champion of zealous action? Most rabbinic commentators say that God was troubled (as we should be) by this self-appointed executor of righteous vengeance. Pinchas needs to find ways of embodying divine attributes of peace, not what one commentator calls “zealous vigilantism.” Rather than offering us a positive model of a decisive leader, acting on God’s side in difficult times, our tradition casts him as a fanatic who sets a dangerous precedent, and needs to be limited and constrained by the priestly role in which he is now invested.[1]
Notice the tone of condemnation in this Hebrew explanation. There is also the assumption that the Israelite man is blatantly involved in the same sexual fertility rites, but the text does not say this at all. The fact that the rabbis are troubled by Pinhas’ action tells us more about the ethical environment of the rabbis than it does about Pinhas.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis goes even further:[1]
Framing the event as “an act of murder” already condemns Pinhas. Notice the mistake of assuming the Midianites are the same as the Moabites. Notice the mistake of claiming this was coitus. This is an “explanation” of the text with a built-in bias, not unlike typical Christian views. Modern morality is inserted into the ancient story.
Chabad.org tries to redeem Pinhas from Jewish criticism by suggesting he is really following the law:
Phinehas’ act was not merely a spontaneous reaction but had legal basis in Jewish law. Although a penalty could normally only be administered by the court, in a few select instances an allowance was given for onlookers to mete out punishment independently. One such scenario was if one witnessed a Jewish man sin with a non-Jewish woman in public. This authorization to punish was limited to the actual time of coitus, and not a moment later. Furthermore, if one would approach the court and ask for permission to administer punishment, he would be told to refrain. It was only if he did so on his own accord that it would be considered praiseworthy.[1]
But again the assumption is that the Israelite man was engaged in sexual intercourse with the woman at that moment.
The website Emet HaTorah attempts another explanation, with considerable caveats:
Many people have questioned this act of Pinchas throughout the centuries. Was this act a vigilante one and could the plague have been stopped through another means? This question becomes even more pronounced when we look at the following verses:
And the LORD said to Moses, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’” (Numbers 25:10–13)
Although a surface reading of this passage seems to indicate that this action was indeed sanctioned by the Holy One of Israel, there is something going on behind the scenes in the Hebrew. Verse twelve says, “Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace.” In the Hebrew, the word for peace is shalom. It is written with four Hebrew letters: shin-lamed-vav-mem. In this case, however, one of the letters is written in an unusual manner. In this passage, the word shalom is written defectively with a broken vav in a standard Torah scroll. The letter vav is cut in half.
From this anomaly many have speculated that the covenant of peace that Hashem made with Pinchas was not necessarily a perfect or complete one, but one given more as a consolation prize. According to this theory, the LORD did not completely approve of the vigilante aggression of Pinchas. But does this theory hold water?
First, if we read the account of Pinchas in last week’s portion, his act is initiated by the command of Moses in the verse just before his story is told. Moses told the leaders of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor” (Numbers 25:5). Therefore, Pinchas was merely following the instructions of the LORD given through the mouth of Moses.
Second, the Scriptures memorialize the act of Pinchas as one of righteousness. The Psalms tell us:
Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever. (Psalm 106:30–31)
If this is the case, then what does the broken vav tell us? What does it symbolize? If we think about the numeric and symbolic meaning of the letter vav, then we can make another connection. The letter vav has the numerical value of six. Since man was created on the sixth day of Creation, the letter vav has come to represent mankind. While we can only speculate, it is likely that the broken vav reminds us that this covenant of peace that was given to Pinchas and his descendants came at a very high cost. It came at the cost of human life. Humanity was diminished, or broken, in order to bring about peace.
The next time we are enjoying a moment of peace, let’s not forget the price that was paid to achieve that peace. Not only did our forefathers fight wars and give their own blood so that we might have peace today, but our righteous Messiah was broken on our behalf so that we might have peace as well. The vav will always remain broken so that our peace may be made whole.[2]
So, according to this reading, Pinhas was vindicated, but not entirely. Here the story is turned into a morality lesson for future readers. God gives a covenant, but a fractured one. Do you think this redeems Pinhas? Or God?
Dr. David Bernat’s analysis is perhaps the best:
Pinchas is portrayed as a hero in the Torah and Second Temple sources for killing Zimri and his Midianite lover, Cozbi. Rabbinic sources struggle with the absence of any juridical process or deliberative body, which contravenes their own judicial norms, and therefore recast or minimize his act in subtle ways.
Because of our narrative, and its Leitworter, Pinchas is held up among early Jewish exegetes as the first religious Zealot. As such, Pinchas’ key role in the tale, and his zealotry in general, elicited a range of responses among early Jewish tradents. For example, 1 Maccabees foregrounds Pinchas’ zealotry, and treats him as the “poster boy” for the Hasmonean program, and the inspiration for Mattathias’ action that catalyzes their rebellion (1 Macc 2:24-28).
Josephus admires Pinchas’ character and resolve but omits any mention of zealotry in the Antiquities version of Baal Peor (Ant. 4:131-155). This excision is a function of Josephus’ general polemic against the Jewish zealots to whom he assigns culpability for the sack of Jerusalem by his Flavian patrons. The Rabbis demonstrate a high degree of ambivalence toward Pinchas and his zealotry as compared to the abovementioned sources.
The biblical passages about Pinchas in Numbers and Psalms lend themselves to examination through a legal prism, especially because the language of Num 25:4-5 has a decidedly juridical cast. God enjoins Moses to impale (הוֹקַע) the ringleaders, something often done to the bodies of criminals (compare Deut. 21:22-23; Josh. 10:26; 1 Sam. 21:6-13), and Moses summons Israel’s Judges (שֹׁפְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) to carry out the edict.
Moreover, the Psalmist’s choice of the verb וַיְפַלֵּל also belongs to the juridical sphere. While וַיְפַלֵּל here is often rendered as “intervene,” the clause could also be legitimately translated as “Pinchas stood and judged,” following the use of the root פ.ל.ל in various other biblical texts (Exod 21:22; Deut 32:31; 1 Sam 2:25; Isa 16:3, 28:7; Ezek 16:52; Job 31:11, 28).
Nevertheless, Pinchas’ act is not judicial in character— he acts impulsively based on what he sees, with no mention of judges or a verdict. This bothers the rabbis, who view Pinchas’ deed through the lens of their own system of ethics concerning crime and punishment. His precipitous, unilateral, extrajudicial execution of Zimri and Cozbi contravenes basic Rabbinic principles of justice, especially as applied to capital matters, since the rabbis were very strict in matters of evidence and procedure when it came to the laws of capital punishment.
The fourth chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin begins by listing differences between monetary and capital cases; these are all aimed at making it more difficult to convict people of capital crimes. In fact, other rabbinic texts make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a conviction for a death penalty offense.
The Rabbinic protections for capital defendants, which, in some respect, enshrine their discomfort with capital punishment, are encapsulated by the first dictum in Mishnah Avot(1:1), “Be deliberate in judgment” (הוו מתונים בדין). It is this deliberation that makes it nigh impossible to convict someone of, and execute them for, a capital crime.
In contrast to this judicial stance, Mishnah Sanhedrin 9:6 articulates four scenarios when judicial procedure is bypassed, and the person is executed on the spot without trial or conviction:
According to this Mishnah, anyone who violates one of these laws may be killed outright by a zealot. The third of these laws, sex with a non-Israelite woman, is exactly what Zimri violated; Pinchas, of course, was the zealot. Thus, in essence, the Mishnah turns [Pinchas’] spontaneous act of zealous justice into a legal category called “zealous dispatching,” listing this together with other cases in which this kind of summary execution by a bystander is, in fact, the law.
Other Rabbinic texts, however, suggest that Pinchas did indeed convict Zimri in court. For example, Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:2, picking up on the language of Num 25:7, “and he [Pinchas] arose from the midst of the community” (וַיָּקָם מִתּוֹךְ הָעֵדָה) states: He arose from his sanhedrin…
While these sources justify Pinchas’ vigilante-style justice by turning it into legislation, other rabbinic voices—even in the same Talmudic pericope—are more equivocal (Sanhedrin 82a):[3]
What can we conclude? First, we must acknowledge that Pinhas’ action doesn’t fit our ideas of jurisprudence, and God’s endorsement makes any explanation more difficult. But, secondly, Pinhas doesn’t live in our world. His world is a world of religious dedication beyond anything we experience today. Judging his act by modern standards, even rabbinic ones, is anachronistic. We need to understand Pinhas in his own time and culture, not ours. Does that mean we can draw ethical conclusions from the story of Pinhas, either positive or negative? I think not. This is an event from another time and another place. Its interpretation does not give warrant for any current application, good or bad. Pinhas was a zealot for God. That’s enough. No further ethical justification is needed, and no judgment is necessary. It’s history, not ethics.
Topical Index: Pinhas, murder, ethics, zealot, Number 25:10-12
NOTE: I realize that these footnotes are not in proper order but the formatting requirements on this site will not allow me to correct this, so please just put up with it this time. Thanks.
[1] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4071544/jewish/Phinehas-The-Zealot-of-the-Bible.htm
[2] https://www.emethatorah.com/blog/2017/july-14/parashat-pinchas-numbers-2510-301
[3] https://www.thetorah.com/article/pinchas-extrajudicial-execution-of-zimri-and-cozbi
[1] Chris Harrison, “A Covenant of Peace for All Who Enter Jewish Spaces,” The Social Justice Torah Commentary (ed. Rabbi Barry H. Block), Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2021.
[1] https://hebrewcollege.edu/blog/change-from-the-inside-parshat-pinchas-numbers-251-301/
