Irony, Squared
In the previous Torah portion we read, at the end, a story about the Moabite women (and some Midianite women were there as well for some reason), had seduced the Hebrew men, who were having sex with them, and some were worshiping Baal-Peor. This was angering Yahweh, so Moses commanded the judges to kill every man who was worshiping Baal Peor.
OK, this is kind of reminiscent of the Golden Calf story, except here, one man, who would be named in a later portion, doesn't worship Baal Peor, but instead has sex with a woman, who would be named later, right in front of Moses, who simply stands there and cries.
And so, Pinchas takes a spear and stabs the two in the stomach and the couple is killed, and that satisfies Yahweh, and 24,000 men were killed that day.
At the beginning of this portion, Yahweh, through Moses, tells the people that Pinchas did the right thing and that he would be rewarded as having an important title that will pass onto his descendants as well, priest of Yahweh. Not only priest, but later he will be the High Priest of War (31:6).
The man whom he murdered was the prince of the tribe of Shimon, and the woman was a Midianite princess.
Now let's go back to the Book of Genesis for a bit.
Much of the Book of Genesis is an eponymous text, meaning, it comes to explain the reason that areas of the land had specific names by applying them to characters in the text and giving qualities of the residents to the men whose name they borrowed. If the storytellers liked that group, then the patriarch of the story, such as Judah, would be presented in a positive light. If not, as with Reuben, he would be presented in a negative light. This presentation wasn't consistent across stories, since each storyteller had his own view.
In one story, Shimon is presented as a hothead who would do what he wanted, and take what he wanted. When his sister, Dinah, is raped, he takes action and draws his easily-influenced brother, Levi, into massacring everyone in town who he felt deserved it for this sexual transgression, acting when nobody else would.
Now let's fast-forward to Pinchas, a descendant of Levi, taking action and killing Zimri, a descendant and chief of Shimon, for his sexual transgression, acting when nobody else would.
There is an irony to this.
It is also symbolic, in that Levi is forever disconnected from Shimon, and lay powerless before him.
And if you read how the tribe of Shimon would be represented in other stories, as being fragmented and scattered, and never fully integrating with the others, this story seems to be presenting the view that those of Shimon are not to be fully trusted, and tells this story of irony.
The other irony is that, in the story about Korah's Rebellion, we had read that one of the main complaints we nepotism. Aaron, the brother of Moses, was the one who built the Golden Calf, yet he becomes High Priest. Only those of the family of Moses could be priests, and only they could receive the gifts that Yahweh apparently demanded for them, throughout their lifetimes.
And here, Moses doubles-down and names his grand-nephew as another lineage of priesthood, but this time not a single person speaks up against him. Tens of thousands were killed the last time they did so, and tens of thousands more were killed before Pinchas took the law into his own hands.
So like Moses, they kept silent.
This is what I meant by irony, squared.
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