Numbers 15:15

15:15 One statute must apply ¹  to you who belong to the congregation and to the resident foreigner who is living among you, as a permanent ²  statute for your future generations. You and the resident foreigner will be alike ³  before the Lord.

Numbers 19:10

19:10 The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes and be ceremonially unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the resident foreigner who lives among them.

Numbers 25:13

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, ⁴  and has made atonement ⁵  for the Israelites.’”

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¹ tn The word “apply” is supplied in the translation.

² tn Or “a statute forever.”

³ tn Heb “as you, as [so] the alien.”

⁴ tn The motif is reiterated here. Phinehas was passionately determined to maintain the rights of his God by stopping the gross sinful perversions.

⁵ 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.