Numbers 25:3
And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry,
In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Initiatusque est Israël Beelphegor : et iratus Dominus,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐτελέσθη Ἰσραὴλ τῷ Βεελφεγώρ· καὶ ὠργίσθη θυμῷ Κύριος τῷ Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּצָּ֥מֶד יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְבַ֣עַל פְּע֑וֹר וַיִּֽחַר אַ֥ף יְהוָ֖ה בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל
Haydock's commentary
Initiated to Beelphegor. That is, they took to the worship of Beelphegor, an obscene idol of the Moabites, and were consecrated as it were to him. (Challoner)
Hebrew, "Israel was attached, or married to Beelphegor," the sun, Adonis or Osiris, whom the psalmist (cv. 28,) styles, the dead, because the people were accustomed to bewail the death of Adonis every year, with great solemnity. (Calmet)
St. Jerome supposes this god "of opening, or nakedness," Beelphegor, to be the obscene Priapus. (Menochius)
The people fell by degrees into the depth of abomination. They first defiled their bodies with women, then their souls were contaminated by the sacrifices of their idols, till they began really to adore them, and even to consecrate themselves to their service, meaning to ratify their base apostacy from the true God. (Haydock)
Yet it is probable all those who were cut off by pestilence, were not thus initiated: but only those who were the princes or ringleaders, and who are sentenced to be gibbeted. (Salien)
The mother of Asa, king of Juda, was not ashamed to preside over the mysteries of this obscene idol, (3 Kings xv. 13,) which people worshipped by prostitution. (Villalpand) (St. Jerome in Osee iv. 9.) (Tirinus)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Modesty, Chapter VI
Plainly, if you show by what patronages of heavenly precedents and precepts it is that you open to adultery alone, and therein to fornication also, the gate of repentance, at this very line our hostile encounter will forthwith cross swords. Yet I must necessarily prescribe you a law, not to stretch out your hand after the old things, not to look backwards: for “the old things are passed away,” according to Isaiah; and “a renewing hath been renewed,” according to Jeremiah; and “forgetful of former things, we are reaching forward,” according to the apostle; and “the law and the prophets (were) until John,” according to the Lord. …
The Apostolic Constitutions Book V, Sec. II. All Association with Idols is to Be Avoided
XII . Nor do the legislators give us only prohibitions concerning idols, but also warn us concerning the luminaries, not to swear by them, nor to serve them. For they say: “Lest, when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, thou shouldest be seduced to worship them.” And elsewhere: “Do not ye learn to walk after the ways of the heathen, and be not afraid of the signs of heaven.” For the stars and the luminaries were given to men to shine upon them, but not for worship; although the Israelites, by the perverseness of their temper, “worshipped the creature instead of the Creator,” and acted insultingly to their Maker, and admired the creature more than is fit. …