Numbers 25:1-2

ISRAEL SEDUCED INTO IDOLATRY, Numbers 25:1-3.

1, 2. Shittim These plains are in the El-Ghor, sixty furlongs east of the Jordan. Note, Joshua 2:1. The daughters of Moab were the chief agents in the execution of this plot by forming friendly associations with the Israelites and then inviting them to the sacrifices of their gods a licentious festival. Thus all the animal appetites are addressed at once.

Such a temptation required stronger moral principles and a loftier spirituality than many Israelites possessed. The vices of the Canaan-ites, idolatry and whoredom, had infected Midian, a branch of Abraham’s family, (Genesis 25:2,) through successive intermarriages with these tribes. The prostitution of a king’s daughter, (Numbers 25:6, note,) doubtless given by her father as a token of hospitality, a custom still found among some African nations, shows that the shocking depravity of Sodom (Genesis 19:8) had corrupted the seed of Abraham.