Phinees' Zeal

Phinees' Zeal
©Lúcio Mascarenhas.
22^nd February 2003. St. Margaret of Cortona, Pœnitent.
Orthopapism II/Michaelinum | Index of Articles
This is the account of Phinees and how he gained the favour of the Lord:

Numbers 25: 1-13 (Confraternity of St. Joseph Version)

¹ When Israel was living at Sattim, the people degraded themselves by having illicit relations with the Moabite women. ² These then invited the people to the sacrifice of their god, and the people ate of the sacrifice and worshipped their god. ³ When Israel thus submitted to the rites of Ba'al Phogor, the Lord's anger flared up against Israel, ⁴ and he said to Moses, "Gather all the leaders of the people, and hold a public execution of the guilty ones before the Lord, that his blazing wrath may be turned away from Israel." ⁵ So Moses told the Israelite judges, "Each of you shall kill those of his men who have submitted to the rites of Ba'al Phogor."

⁶ Yet a certain Israelitie came and brought in a Madianite woman to his family in the view of Moses and of the whole Israelite community, while they were weeping at the entrance of the Meeting Tent ⁷ When Phinees, son of Eleazar, son of A'aron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, and taking a lance in hand, ⁸ followed the Israelite into his retreat where he pierced the pair of them, the Israelite and the woman. Thus the slaughter of Israelites was checked; ⁹ but only after twenty-four thousand had died.

¹⁰ Then the Lord said to Moses, ¹¹ "Phinees, son of Eleazar, son of A'aron the priest, has turned my anger from the Israelites by his zeal for my honour among them; that is why I did not put an end to the Israelites for the offense to my honour. ¹² Announce, therefore, that I hereby give him my pledge of friendship, ¹³ which shall be for him and for his descendants after him the pledge of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous on behalf of his God and thus made amends for the Israelites." The moral of the story is that Phinees acted voluntarily, without being prompted and commanded, actuated by confidence in the righteousness of his faith and by his zeal for the Lord.

It is telling that modern, Talmudic, i.e. post-Christian Judaism, which is developed from Pharisaicalism, despises Phinees...

The Talmud contemns Phinees, calling him the Robber. Reading the Book of Numbers in the Bible, chapters 25 and 26, one gets a perspective for this contempt.

The man Phinees slew, and who had been flagrantly and contemptuously fornicating with a Madianitess, was a prince of the Simeonites. Later, Phinees, when the Israelites were sent out to wage war upon the Madianites, also slew Bala'am ben Be'or, towards whom the Jews according to the natural word, have a secret affinity.

Therefore, from the Jews' nationalistic sense, Phinees was a bad man...

Here is the relevant extract from the Talmud, as found in the writings of the notorious anti-Catholic Neo-Con, F. John Loughnan: Interesting too, is the identification of Jesus with Balaam in the 1935 Soncino Edition of The Talmud, translated into English with Notes, Glossary and Indices by Jacob Shacter and H. Freedman. A photocopy of the relevant passages was reproduced in Elizabeth Dilling's "The Plot Against Christianity: "Turning to Exhibit 114 which is Sanhedrin 106a-106b mentioned above, we see the likening of Jesus to the supposed act of Balaam in causing 24,000 Israelites to go whoring and die of plague (some 1450 years before Christ was born). He is due for his 'reward' for this infamy. His mother, Mary, is 'She who...played the harlot with carpenters...They subjected him to four deaths, stoning, burning, decapitation and strangulation...he was thirty-three or thirty- four years old'. Another says: 'I...have seen Balaam's Chronicle in which it states, "Balaam the lame was thirty years old when Phineas the Robber killed him".

The footnote explains:

'Balaam is frequently used in the Talmud as a type for Jesus.' And the mother of Jesus is identified, the four deaths enumerated, and: '...all the Balaam passages are anti-Christian in tendency, Balaam being used as an alias for Jesus, Phineas the Robber is thus taken to represent Pontius Pilate, and the Chronicle of Balaam probably to denote a Gospel'.

Verifying the Jewish Ency. account above on Balaam being Jesus in the Talmud we see: 'in the case of the wicked Balaam: whatever you find written about him, lecture upon it to his disadvantage" (Exh.115). Christian Churches are likened to tents for Baal prostitution, with old women outside, young ones inside to get customers drunk and disrobe and worship the 'IDOL', Jesus, in Baal manner, by prostitution. (Exh. 112)."
Lúcio Mascarenhas
©Lúcio Mascarenhas.
Orthopapism II/Michaelinum | Index of Articles