Numbers 25:17 - Exposition

Vex the Midianites. The Moabites, although the evil began with them, were passed over; perhaps because they were still protected by the Divine injunction ( Deuteronomy 2:9 ) not to meddle with them; more probably because their sin had not the same studied and deliberate character as the sin of the Midianites. We may think of the women of Moab as merely indulging their individual passions after their wonted manner, but of the women of Midian as employed by their rulers, on the advice of Balsam, in a deliberate plot to entangle the Israelites in heathen rites and heathen sins which would alienate from them the favour of God.