PHINEHAS, or, as the Jews pronounce it, Pinehas, was the son of Eleazar, and the grandson of Aaron. He was the third high priest of the Jews, and discharged this office from the year of the world 2571 till towards the year 2590. He appears in Scripture chiefly as distinguished by pious zeal for the faithful discharge of his duty, and for the divine glory. Two of his actions are commemorated as more particularly worthy of notice in this respect. The former of these events occurred during the high priesthood of his father Eleazar, and whilst he himself was second priest. The circumstances connected with it, and of which a full account is given by Moses (Numb. xxv. 7, ff.), were briefly these: Balaam, a famous soothsayer, having been brought by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites, but having by a mysterious influence been compelled to bless them, willing nevertheless to please his patron, and to earn “the wages of unrighteousness,” suggested to the king the. expedient of seducing the Israelites to idolatry, as the most likely mode of withdrawing from them the protection and favour of God. The expedient unhappily proved successful. Attracted by the license that prevailed at the celebration of the heathen festivals, the people of Israel joined in the sacrifices, and indulged in the loose and immoral practices of the Moabites. As an expression of the divine indignation against this conduct, God, in addition to a destroying plague which he sent amongst the people, commanded the judges of Israel to “slay every one his men that were joined to Baal-peor.” To this command Phinehas was the first to render obedience. One of the princes of Israel, a man of great influence in the tribe of Simeon, Zimri by name, having audaciously, in this madness of sinful indulgence, conveyed a Moabitish female of high rank through the very midst of the camp of the Israelites, thereby offering outrage to the virtue and piety of those who were lamenting over the transgressions of the people, insulting in the most direct manner the majesty of God, and ostentatiously uttering defiance of the threatened punishment, Phinehas, stirred with a holy indignation, rushed from the midst of those who in horror and consternation had beheld the daring offence, and, following the guilty prince to his tent, transfixed him and his paramour in the midst of their licentious indulgence, and killed them both with one blow. For this act of valour, decision, and zeal, the plague was removed, and Phinehas was rewarded by having renewed to him that “covenant of peace,” “the covenant of an everlasting priesthood,” which God had on former occasions made with Noah, Abraham, and others distinguished for piety and zeal. Some have erroneously supposed that the blessing conferred upon Phinehas was the perpetuation in his family of the high priesthood of the Jews, and they have been not a little puzzled to acçount for the fact, that this office nevertheless passed out of his family after the death of Eli, at a period not very far removed from that here referred to. The mistake, however, must be obvious to all who have observed carefully the language of Scripture in regard to what is called God’s covenant. By that term is designated the covenant of grace, “the everlasting covenant,” which, the apostle tells us, was sealed with the blood of Christ (Heb. xiii. 20). This covenant God made with Adam after the fall; and he renewed it with particular individuals, in token of his approbation of their conduct, from time to time, until it was consummated in Christ; and it was by such a renewal of it with Phinehas that he expressed his commendation of the zeal which that individual showed in the case above related. With this, his occupying the place of high priest had no connection, as to that he succeeded by right of birth on the death of his father.

The other memorable action of Phinehas, in which he [7:17:448]showed his zeal for the Lord, is recorded in Josh, xxii. 9-34. This was when the Israelites who were beyond Jordan had raised upon the banks of this river a vast heap of earth in the form of an altar. Those on the other side, fearing that they were going to forsake the Lord, and set up another religion, deputed Phinehas and other chief men amongst them to go and inform themselves of the reason of erecting this monument. But when they had found that it was in commemoration of their union and common original, Phinehas took occasion to praise the Lord, saying, “We perceive that the Lord is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the Lord.”

We do not exactly know the time of the death of Phinehas. But as he lived after the death of Joshua, and before the first servitude under Chushan-rishathaim, during the time that there were neither kings nor judges in the land, and every one did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges, xvii. 6, xviii. 1, xxi. 24), his death is placed about the year of the world 2590. It was under his pontificate that the story of Micah happened, as also that of the tribe of Dan, when they made a conquest of Laïsh; and the enormity which was committed upon the wife of the Levite of the mountain of Ephraim (Judges, xx. 28). Phinehas’s successor in the high priesthood was Abiezar, or Abishuah.

The Rabbin allow a very long life to Phinehas. There are some who believe that he lived to the time of the high priest Eli, or even to that of Samson. Others will have it that he was the same as Eli, or rather as the prophet Elias, which would still prolong his life for several ages.