(11) Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest . . . --The description of Phinehas, as in Numbers 25:7, is repeated in full, as if to denote that he was not a private individual, but one invested with public authority.

While he was zealous for my sake among them.--Better, in that he was jealous with my jealousy (or, in that he displayed my jealousy).

Verse 11. - While he was zealous for my sake. Rather, "while he was zealous with my zeal" (אֶת־קִנְאָתִי. Septuagint, ἐν τῷ ζηλωσαί μου τὸν ζῆλον, where μου stands emphatically before ζῆλον). In my jealousy. Rather, "in my zeal;" the same word is used.

25:6-15 Phinehas, in the courage of zeal and faith, executed vengeance on Zimri and Cozbi. This act can never be an example for private revenge, or religious persecution, or for irregular public vengeance.Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,.... His descent and genealogy is observed as before, partly to show that he was not a private person, but a man of public authority that did the above fact; perhaps one of the judges that Moses ordered to slay every man his man, and therefore what he did by the order of the supreme magistrate; and partly to show that he was heir apparent to the office of high priest, who in course was to succeed in it; nor should this action of his hinder it, but rather serve to secure and confirm it to him:

hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel; caused the effects of it to cease, by slaying the two persons, as before related:

while he was zealous for my sake among you; for the glory of God, the honour of his law, the credit of religion, and the good of his people, which is a good cause to be zealously affected in, Galatians 4:18 in which he was a type of Christ, whose zeal for the house of God, for the doctrine, discipline, and worship of it, for the salvation of his people, and the glory of God thereby, ate him up, Psalm 69:9 as well as in his turning away wrath from Israel; sin is the cause of wrath, and for it is revealed from heaven; the people of God are deserving of it as others; but Christ has bore it for them, and so has delivered them from it and all the effects of it, and they are secure from its coming upon them:

that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy; by the plague sent among them, being so highly provoked with their shocking abominations.