Parashat Pinchas 2025

Apostolic Messianic International

Parashat Pinchas: The Godliness of Anger

Torah: Numb 25:10-30:1

Haftarah: 1 Kings 18:46-19:21, Jer 1:1-2:3

Brit Chadashah: Rom 11:2-32, Rev 1:5-6, Rev 5:10, 1 Pet 2:5-9, Heb 13:5

Main Sections:

The Anger and Zeal of Pinchas.

Taking a Generational Census.

The Daughters of Zelophehad.

Joshua Selected to Succeed Moses.

Teaching on the Daily, Sabbath, Monthly, and Feast Offerings.

Does God love our anger? He has anger. He made it and made it for a reason. Some expressions of anger are not good and can be very self-serving. Anger hides behind things like bitterness, jealousy, self-centeredness, and unforgiveness. It causes us to hang on to the wrong things for too long. At other times it is a response to an offense. While this is not all bad, we can over respond when we feel threatened, then our anger carries our behavioral responses into ungodliness.

Another kind of anger that is usually misunderstood is righteous anger. This is a very moralized anger that can easily push us into crusading for the right reason but can also cause us to trample everyone around us. Where other forms of anger are focused on our sense of being violated, this anger is present due to a person getting angry over what makes God angry (i.e. sin and separation from God). The sticky part of this anger is that God is a righteous judge (Ps 7:11), we are not. He knows the hearts of man (Heb 4:12), we do not. God’s righteous anger is also longsuffering (Ps 145:8), where ours can flash in a moment and suddenly we can act wrongly and without thinking (see James 1:19-20).

In our parashat, we see the righteous anger of Pinchas. Pinchas was a temple guard (gate keeper, 1 Chron 9:20) and was responsible for guarding the entrances of the Temple from defilement. God had just issued judgement against the men of Israel (beginning with the chiefs or heads of the tribes) for whoring with the daughters of Moab and worshiping Baal of Peor. God told Moses to carry out his judgement and hang all who were joined with Baal Peor.

If we are to judge Pinchas correctly, it must be in light of God’s direct command that was already being carried out to stop a plague. As the people were worshipping and weeping at the door of the Tabernacle, an Israelite prince named Zimri (of the Tribe of Simeon) walked by the entrance of the Tabernacle with a Midianite woman (a priestess named Cozbi). This was done in the sight of Moses and the whole community. God’s address to Moses indicated that most or all of this idolatry took place away from the congregation, but this incident signaled a complete sell out to paganism as it was not only being brought into the congregation, but before the door of the Tabernacle. Pinchas slew both Zimry and Cozbi with a spear while they were engaged in their whoredom and God commended Pinchas for his actions.

Whas Pinchas wrong? Our scriptural areas of civil law and modern sensibilities would prefer to have seen a more drawn out method of dealing with things that included accountability, committees or judges, counsel, and witnesses (let’s not forget formal due process) instead of unilateral action. Pinchas fully understood his office, God’s decree, and what was at stake. Due to God’s decree, there was only one response. We do not deal with individually carrying out this type of judgment today as we are not a theocracy and have courts and a constitution. We do deal with our own sense of righteous anger and indignation.

Have you ever felt righteous indignation? Many are good at seeing injustice, problems, and mistakes but bad about responding to it biblically. Biblical anger must be coupled with a biblical response. The problem is we confuse a sense of self-righteous anger for godly anger. Self-righteous anger is a type of anger (like sudden anger) that usually has no godly motive or sense of godly action attached to it. Righteous, godly anger loves what God loves, as well as what God hates, and acts accordingly. Many have tried to impart the word of God in teaching or preaching under the guise of holy anger, but instead of drawing others to God in love, they come across as a parent scolding their children. It is good to be angry about the right things, but our response needs to be geared to inspiring people to repent and come to a loving God for forgiveness. It is okay to hate the sin that God hates, but we still need to love the people that God loves.

Sometimes our sense of self-righteous anger is really rooted in our pride, wanting to appear intelligent, or seem holy. We can constantly moralize and lecture people in the face of their faults, inadequacies, and failures. It is easy to arrogantly correct another when we have no conviction to join with them in life and walk together as an equal. Godly anger can be valuable in relationships because it can communicate conviction, importance, and value.

Godly anger is concerned with helping people come to God, making people stronger, and being an example of godliness on many levels. Do we love people enough to acknowledge our own faults in meekness, identify with them on their level, encourage them, and share our own vulnerabilities and ways of overcoming? Correction of any type will fall on deaf ears if a loving relationship is not present.

Holy anger is not just a punitive, knee-jerk response, though it seems that way in biblical accounts like Pinchas. If it is done in a godly way, it must be communicated with the same sensitivity we would like in return and if we love those who God loves, our anger will be aimed at inspiring and bring people to God.

Rav Calev

Apostolic Messianic International-Gulf Coast

Next Feasts

Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset, Sept 22^nd and ends at sunset on Sept 24^th.

Yom Kippur begins at sunset, Oct 1^st and ends at sunset on Oct 2^nd.

Sukkot begins at sunset, Oct 6^th and ends at sunset on Oct 13^th.

Hebrew words to know:

What is Pardes? It is a Hebrew word meaning orchard or from a Jewish perspective, paradise. It was also an acronym that helped Rabbis teach and interpret the word. You may hear some of these terms as your Rabbi is teaching from the bema. In Jewish teaching the P'shat is the one part that cannot be taken out of the teaching.

P'shat- the plain and simple meaning of the text.

Remez- an implied or deeper meaning of the text.

D'rash- the meaning that must be found by searching and studying.

Sod- The hidden meaning of the text