UPDATED Aug 7, 2024, thanks to Sefaria Staff. See below note about Num 26:1 at "Does Not Compute."
The central story of the portion Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9) ends with the prophet Balaam and Balak, the king who hired him, going their separate ways, away from the Yisraelite camp:
וַיָּקׇם בִּלְעָם וַיֵּלֶךְ וַיָּשׇׁב לִמְקֹמוֹ וְגַם־בָּלָק הָלַךְ לְדַרְכּוֹ׃ {פ}
Then Bil’am arose and went, returning to his place; and also Balak went on his way.
A new story begins with Num 25:1, when the people are staying at Shittim, maybe a proper name and/or a grove of acacia trees. (Link to Fox translation for Numbers 25:1-8).
NOTE: no mention in verses 1-7, or earlier in the text, of any plague; it first appears at the end of verse 8. Then --
וַיִּהְיוּ הַמֵּתִים בַּמַּגֵּפָה אַרְבָּעָה וְעֶשְׂרִים אָלֶף׃ {פ}
(9) Those who died of the plague were four and twenty thousand.
So, what plague? and why?
Many commentators through the centuries assume the plague was Divine punishment for the "whoring" mentioned at the start of Chapter 25, or the actions of this couple, later identified as "Zimri son of Salu, leader of a Fathers’ House of the Shim’onites," and "Kozbi daughter of Tzur; tribal head of the Fathers’ House of Midyan" (Num 25:14-15). Some teachers suggest, to the contrary, that an on-going plague was the REASON Zimri and Kozbi were fornicating in the tent of meeting.
For example, R' Gunther Plaut (1912-2012), z"l, writes in the 1981 UAHC The Torah commentary (same text found in later Reform commentaries):
"According to Mendenhall, it is likely that the plague (mentioned in verse 9 as an apparent consequence of Israel's immorality) was in fact the context in which the original incident took place [endnote (citation)]. An epidemic of serious proportions ravaged large portions of the ancient Near East at that time,** possibly it as the bubonic plague. The Israelites were suddenly infected with the disease through their contact with the Moabites or Midianites. Zimri boldly followed a pagan precedent for dealing with such a mysterious affliction; and by his public act he urged his fellow Israelites to engage in prostitution rites as a means of warding off the plague. The result was the disease spread more rapidly.
"Phinehas did not act out of superior medical knowledge. He saw in Zimri's act an open breach of the covenant, a flagrant return to the practices that the compact at Sinai had foresworn. There was no precedent in the brief history of the people to determine how to deal with such a religious and moral emergency. Mendenhall makes it appear plausible that this was the first incident in which God's power over life and death (in a juridical sense) passed to the people. Phinehas's impulsive deed was not merely a kind of battle field execution but reflected his apprehension that the demands of God needed human realization and required a memorable and dramatic example against permissiveness in the religious realm. The Torah, by obviously approving strongly, implies that this was the proper way to halt further religious disintegration and to repair the breach of the covenant. [footnote]."
** It was common for mid-20th Century bible scholarship to cite historical reference for events related in the Torah. Plaut, his memory for a blessing, seemed to take certain "historical contexts" as given; this is one reason his commentary can sometimes seem old and fusty, but it's still extremely helpful and worth perusing. (Also note: His commentary was a huge deal when new. It brought full Torah text into Reform settings, back when the Union for Reform Judaism was still known as the UAHC [Union of American Hebrew Congregations] and services were substantially in English; in fact, it was the first non-orthodox, full Torah commentary in English, and it was the first to include critical scholarship in a volume meant for worship settings.)
footnote: "While this approval limited ancient commentators in their attitude toward Phinehas, they could express themselves more freely with regard to a similar incident, the killing of an Egyptian overseer by Moses (Exod. 2:11-12). In that instance, the Bible records no judgment, neither in approval not disapproval, but one tradition speculates that this killing was the real reason Moses was denied entrance into the Holy Land. Opposing this, another opinion holds that the reason for Moses' grave remaining unknown is that he had left it to Phinehas to restore Israel's purity and had not himself acted quickly [citation: Numbers Rabbah 20:24]...."
endnote: "Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation." Full citation: Mendenhall, George E. The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. (This work of Christian bible scholarship is available through Archive.org.)
Then What?
Parashat Pinchas is surrounded with scribal oddities and other elements creating extra space in and around the portion. One of them is the mid-verse line break in Num 26:1 --
וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי הַמַּגֵּפָה {פ}
וַיֹּאמֶר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן לֵאמֹר׃
וַיֹּאמֶר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן לֵאמֹר׃
This oddity in the Torah layout -- that {פ} is the digital equivalent of white space at the end of a line, which is not uncommon, EXCEPT in the middle of a verse like this (for more on this, see other sheet, previously cited) -- puts a hard separation between the plague ("Now/And it was after the plague...") and what comes next (the command for and conducting of a census).
Why the hard break? A number of teachers suggest an opportunity to pause for various forms of re-assessing. Some include this break with other attempts to create separation from the Pinchas story. The 13th Century CE scholar Chizkuni says this break represents the final separation of those born in the wilderness from those who left Mitzrayim:
ויהי אחרי המגפה כשכלו מתי מדבר יש כאן פרשה אעפ״י שהיא באמצע הפסוק ע״י שכאן נפסקה גזרת מתי מדבר ומכאן ואילך בא למנות הבנים מבן עשרים שנה ומעלה שנכנסו לארץ.
it was after the plague;” the “plague” referred to here is the dying in the desert of the generation of the adult Israelite males who had been redeemed from Egypt, but had lacked the faith to try and conquer the land of Canaan. This short phrase is described as an entire chapter despite its containing only three words. Our sages separated these three words from what preceded them by a cantillation mark indicating that a paragraph had been concluded. This is followed by another census of the Jewish males of military age prior to the crossing of the river Jordan.
Regardless of interpretation, this mid-verse line break is so unusual that it is causing technical problems on the Sefaria forum (and probably other places as well).
Does Not Compute
Due to the odd line break, the Revised JPS (2023) translation is missing any English for the pre-break part of the verse --
(Unless JPS actually left part of the verse out of its 2023 publication, which seems worth a footnote on Sefaria, at least! UPDATE Aug 7 24: It turns out that RJPS put the first words of this verse into Chapter 25 -- to the best of my knowledge, a unique decision among publishers Christian or Jewish. That placement resulted in loss of these words in English. But Sefaria staff, working with RJPS for permission, have now returned "after the plague" to the English for 26:1. THANK YOU Sefaria Staff for the care, time and attention required to fix this. )
The Fox (Schocken, 1995) translation, on the other hand, includes ONLY the pre-break part of the verse for Num 26:1, including the second part of the verse in Num 26:2.
וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי הַמַּגֵּפָה {פ}
וַיֹּאמֶר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן לֵאמֹר׃
Now it was after the plague
שְׂאוּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ כׇּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וָמַעְלָה לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם כׇּל־יֹצֵא צָבָא בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל׃
that YHWH said to Moshe and to El’azar son of Aharon the priest, saying:
Take up the head-count of the entire community of the
Children of Israel,
from the age of twenty years and upward, according to their Fathers’ House,
everyone going out to the armed-forces in Israel.
The Koren translation includes all the English within Num 26:1, but seems to manage this by NOT showing the mid-verse line break:
וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי הַמַּגֵּפָה {פ}
וַיֹּאמֶר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן לֵאמֹר׃
And it came to pass after the plague, that the Lord spoke to Moshe and to El῾azar the son of Aharon the priest, saying,
Perhaps someone will create a midrash incorporating contemporary digital attempts to cope with an ancient typographical element. Meanwhile, the addition of white space -- and what it reveals or hides seems worth considering.
What Plague? What Inequality? What Struggle?
In the early months of the Covid-19 in the U.S., there was great deal of talk about how the pandemic was "revealing inequality" in our society: Calls to stay home and stay on the computer "revealed" that many people did not have homes to easily accommodate a full day of school and work for multiple people; "revealed" that not everyone owned a computer or had strong internet connection; "revealed" that some people's ability to eat and keep some kind of roof over their heads meant risking their lives and health; etc; etc; etc.
Periodic concern over police killings "reveal" inequality in how police interact with Black, brown, and native communities. All too regularly, a mass shooting "reveals" how thoroughly guns damage our society, with some communities faring far worse than others. Disasters of one sort or another "reveal" to some among us, and to many pundits whose livelihood depends on finding "new" worries, that resource allocation is unfair and inadequate.
...when the Torah notes that 24,000 died of the plague, without previously having mentioned a plague, does this reflect normalization of suffering? Does it hint that many among us suffer plagues or all kinds while others lead lives of immunity and protection?
When people like Zimri and Kozbi take an action that doesn't make sense to some of us, is there any source of clarification available? What about what Pinchas did? Were all three of them trying to stop a plague that Moses and others somehow just didn't notice or were unable to address??