Bilangan 25:11-13

25:11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal ¹  for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. ²  25:12 Therefore, announce: ³  ‘I am going to give ⁴  to him my covenant of peace. ⁵  25:13 So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, ⁶  and has made atonement ⁷  for the Israelites.’”

Ibrani 7:17-22

7:17 For here is the testimony about him: ⁸  “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” ⁹  7:18 On the one hand a former command is set aside ¹⁰  because it is weak and useless, ¹¹  7:19 for the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. 7:20 And since ¹²  this was not done without a sworn affirmation – for the others have become priests without a sworn affirmation, 7:21 but Jesus ¹³  did so ¹⁴  with a sworn affirmation by the one who said to him, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever’” ¹⁵  – 7:22 accordingly Jesus has become the guarantee ¹⁶  of a better covenant.

[25:11]  ¹ tn Heb “he was zealous with my zeal.” The repetition of forms for “zeal” in the line stresses the passion of Phinehas. The word “zeal” means a passionate intensity to protect or preserve divine or social institutions.

[25:11]  ² tn The word for “zeal” now occurs a third time. While some English versions translate this word here as “jealousy” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), it carries the force of God’s passionate determination to defend his rights and what is right about the covenant and the community and parallels the “zeal” that Phinehas had just demonstrated.

[25:12]  ³ tn Heb “say.”

[25:12]  ⁴ tn Here too the grammar expresses an imminent future by using the particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the participle נֹתֵן (noten) – “here I am giving,” or “I am about to give.”

[25:12]  ⁵ tn Or “my pledge of friendship” (NAB), or “my pact of friendship” (NJPS). This is the designation of the leadership of the priestly ministry. The terminology is used again in the rebuke of the priests in Mal 2.

[25:13]  ⁶ tn The motif is reiterated here. Phinehas was passionately determined to maintain the rights of his God by stopping the gross sinful perversions.

[25:13]  ⁷ sn The atonement that he made in this passage refers to the killing of the two obviously blatant sinners. By doing this he dispensed with any animal sacrifice, for the sinners themselves died. In Leviticus it was the life of the substitutionary animal that was taken in place of the sinners that made atonement. The point is that sin was punished by death, and so God was free to end the plague and pardon the people. God’s holiness and righteousness have always been every bit as important as God’s mercy and compassion, for without righteousness and holiness mercy and compassion mean nothing.

[7:17]  ⁸ tn Grk “for he/it is witnessed that.”

[7:17]  ⁹ sn A quotation from Ps 110:4 (see Heb 5:6 and 6:20).

[7:18]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the setting aside of a former command comes to pass.”

[7:18]  ¹¹ tn Grk “because of its weakness and uselessness.”

[7:20]  ¹² sn The Greek text contains an elaborate comparison between v. 20a and v. 22, with a parenthesis (vv. 20b-21) in between; the comparison is literally, “by as much as…by so much” or “to the degree that…to that same degree.”

[7:21]  ¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:21]  ¹⁴ tn The words “did so” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[7:21]  ¹⁵ sn A quotation from Ps 110:4 (see Heb 5:6, 6:20, and 7:17).

[7:22]  ¹⁶ tn Or “surety.”