Phineas, exultant

Numbers 24:10-11

The LORD said to Moses, "Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them.

To burn is a mercy! To be named is my glory!

Sovereign Lord, who dwells among us, what right have I to claim anything? What right do I have to be called zealous, to be separated out from among all the men that know you, to be given the glory of the covenant you gave me? My head is lifted up, yes, it is lifted up, but only because you lifted it! Why do I burn when others do not? Why did I grab my spear while even Moses prostrated himself? I had not thought of gaining something from you then, none of us did!

All our thoughts were on the plague, the spreading contagion running from tent to tent, from clan to clan, from tribe to tribe. Thousands were in its grip and still it spread, threatening to overwhelm us here, on the cusp of our long-awaited victory, the victory for which and unto which we have been purified these past forty years, the victory you promised, which I never doubted, but which we had to be prepared for, created for, burned away for. We could not be swallowed up here, on the threshold of milk and honey. The plague spread, but beneath it spread a different plague, one more deadly and insidious, for those who died from the outer plague were dead simply, fallen in the desert, a sadness but perhaps not permanent, according to the hope of our people. But to fall victim to that other plague was to die finally, to die outside the covenant, to die enthralled to another god. One plague came from God, the other from Balaam, and perhaps forces more nameless behind him.

We had heard the reports, Moses and his circle, Caleb, Joshua, the chiefs among the Levites, the clan leaders. I was among them when we heard of the arch-sorcerer, I saw the fear in the faces of some, so readily contrasted to the calm steadiness of Moses, the grim fire of Caleb, and the quiet passion of Joshua. I admit my heart was shaken a bit, but I have been long taught by my father in the ways of God, even to minister before him. His fire is fierce among us, he would say, but its true fierceness is for our enemies. In us it burns to strengthen, though its pain is felt. For our enemies, it burns to consume. Balaam, I knew, was not to be feared, and when called upon I said as much. What can the petty sorceries of some mere man be against the one who had fed us from his own hand for forty years? Moses nodded approvingly.

We now know Balaam was hired to curse us. When his curses failed, he tried to earn his money a different way. O Lord, surely such deviousness could not have come from a man along! How perfectly did he judge us! Lord, slay him in the coming battle! Such evil must be wiped out, must be destroyed from the face of the earth!

Seduction. Had the Moabites came screaming from their strongholds, a massed attack upon the men of Israel, we would have overcome them in a minute. Balak knew this. He sought to marshal forces he did not understand to his side, perhaps defeating with some unseen power though his own forces were weak. When this failed, he despaired, but the man he hired did not. Seduce them, he said! Make them one of us! Balaam knew the seductive power of their false religion, holding out as it did all the pleasures of the world to men, men who are weak. Force meeting force strengthens.

It was no more than a strategy. Hit them where they are weak. We are weak for men who cannot see. Our religion is not for men who hope here, but only for men who see the future, men who know what is promised. This is the privilege of God among us. So the plague of here, of pleasure, the wretched plague of the Moabites and their sorcerer spread among us, until at last our God's fire also began to spread among us, a fire that would refine us, but that could consume us, consume us as it did my uncles. Surely we follow a God who is to be feared!

When I saw that man, I feared. I feared God as he had been revealed to me. I feared his anger, which I had heard of. I feared that we would not be allowed into the land we had so long desired, that I had so long desired. Fear alone, though, did not move me, did not make me reach for my spear. It was not fear, but a fire, a passion, something within me that thirsted for the God I followed to be exalted, to be respected, to be known in our camp as he was known to the men who had opposed him in the past. This came up within me, strong, mighty, powerful. I recognized it. It was the same fire that I felt every time I entered the tent of meeting, every time father told me of our past, every time I heard about the exit from Egypt, every time the Moses spoke to us of his encounters on the fiery mountain, every time I saw the stone tablets he had brought down with him.

This is what my God called zeal. But I did not create it. I do not know why it burns in me and not in others. But I knew it had to be obeyed, the fire in me making me into a fire for that man and his seductress, and I put in end to their adultery, and inadvertently (for I did not know this would be the outcome) to the plague itself.

Zeal? If zeal, than zeal comes by the mercy of God, but I will bear this title nonetheless, exulting in the convenant now made with me and my children. I recognize my action, the activity of my zeal, even as I recognize the fire as external. To be named by my God! To hear his voice commending me, speaking of me, knowing me, and I him, as never before, but never to be stopped, never to be ended, my line forever serving before the Lord, forever exultant in his presence! From fire to fire, never-ending, ever burning, glowing, glory reflected from his glory, his image in me! It is mercy all, glorious mercy, which creates in me what it desires from me!

God be praised and feared and obeyed.