Abstract
This article suggests that Numbers 25 is a chapter composed of two separate stories (the Baal Peor affair and the Phinehas narrative) and one supplement. The return of these passages to their original contexts enables the reader to recover their full meaning and to explain the tensions in the existing form of the chapter. Of the many findings the analysis makes, the most significant is the identification of the Midianite woman killed by Phinehas with Zipporah, the wife of Moses. However, it appears that the priestly redactor was not pleased with having a prophetic figure such as Moses in this predicament. Therefore, he added supplementary material to the original text, making it quite diffcult to link the Midianite woman to Moses.
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