I suggested in a post this past week that Jesus is the new Phinehaswhen he comes to judge the Balaamites of Pergamum (Revelation 2:14-16).
I had in mind Numbers 25, where Phinehas arrests a plague that breaks out because Israelites are fornicating and committing idolatry with Moabite women who have been coached by Balaam. One problem with this analogy is that Phinehas stops the plague with a spear, not a sword.
But Balaam was killed by a sword (Numbers 31:8), when Moses sent 12,000 men out to take vengeance against the Midianites (31:2). After killing the Midianite men and Balaam, they burned the cities in a quasi-sacrificial conflagration.
Those troops are led by Phinehas (v. 6), who goes out with the “holy vessels and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand” (v. 6). We aren’t told that Phinehas has a sword, but a sacrificial sword would be part of the holy equipment of a priest.
Perhaps, though, we can draw the analogy between Phinehas in Numbers 31 and Jesus in Revelation 2 more tightly by noting that Jesus’ sword is in His mouth. Is a mouth-sword symbolically equivalent to a trumpet? Is a trumpet a weapon of war?
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
