Following the severe sin at Shittim, where the Israelites fell into idolatry, a dramatic directive is issued to the nation's judicial leadership. The appointed leaders [ביאור שטיינזלץ] and the specific courts of every tribe [מלבי״ם] are ordered to purge this corruption from the camp through strict punishment.
The focus of this judgment falls on those who attached themselves to the idol Baal Peor. This attachment was not casual; it was a tight, unbreakable bond, much like a bracelet fastened securely to a wrist. This highlights both the extreme severity of their actions and their stubborn refusal to let go of the foreign worship [תורה תמימה]. Furthermore, the punishment of death by human hands was warranted strictly because they engaged in actual idol worship, rather than just falling prey to physical desires [העמק דבר]. The prescribed method for this death penalty was hanging [חזקוני].
The instruction commands the judges to execute the offenders under their jurisdiction, sparking a fascinating discussion about how this was to be carried out. One tradition suggests a staggering scale of justice, where each of the seventy-eight thousand judges in Israel was required to personally execute two sinners [רש״י, תורה תמימה]. This would have resulted in an enormous death toll of over one hundred and fifty thousand people [ברכת אשר על התורה]. However, the primary approach among commentators challenges this view. Jewish law dictates that capital cases require a court of twenty-three judges rather than a single individual, and later census records do not reflect such a massive drop in the population [רמב״ן, הטור הארוך]. Therefore, the accepted understanding is that this command was an administrative division of judicial power. Each court leader or legal panel was tasked with judging only the sinners within their own specific tribe and area of responsibility [רמב״ן, הטור הארוך, רלב״ג, רש״ר הירש, אבן עזרא, אם למקרא].
Despite these detailed instructions, historical events suggest this mass judicial execution never actually took place. As the judges gathered to fulfill the command, a deadly plague was already sweeping through the camp. In the midst of this chaos, Zimri publicly committed his sin in a direct act of rebellion against the judges' authority. While the leadership wept in helplessness, Phinehas took matters into his own hands. His zealous intervention immediately halted the plague and turned away the anger of God. Because his actions achieved the ultimate goal of stopping the plague, the immediate need for the courts to try the masses was canceled. Any remaining sinners who escaped human justice were ultimately destroyed by God Himself before the nation crossed the Jordan River [רמב״ן, הטור הארוך, ברכת אשר על התורה].