Bible Strands
Numbers 25:9
but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator reports the casualty total immediately after Phinehas’s spear thrust stops the divine plague. This statement closes the immediate crisis account before the Lord addresses Moses in the subsequent verse.
The words — הַמֵּתִים (ha.me.Tim) means "those who died," and בַּמַּגֵּפָה (ba.ma.ge.Fah) means "in the plague." The text explicitly quantifies the toll as twenty-four thousand.
The thread — The incident is referenced in 1 Corinthians 10:8, Deuteronomy 4:3, and Numbers 25:4. Paul’s citation in 1 Corinthians records twenty-three thousand fallen, while the Hebrew narrative specifies twenty-four thousand.
Why it lands — The text requires a clear accounting of the judgment’s scope and confirms the plague’s cessation. It presents the consequence of idolatry without embellishment or moralizing.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
Cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 10:8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.
- Deuteronomy 4:3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all who followed Baal of Peor.
- Numbers 25:4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that His fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”
- Numbers 14:37 those men who had brought out the bad report about the land—were struck down by a plague before the LORD.
- Numbers 16:49 But those who died from the plague numbered 14,700, in addition to those who had died on account of Korah.
- Numbers 31:16 “Look, these women caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to turn unfaithfully against the LORD at Peor, so that the plague struck the congregation of the LORD.