Comentario sobre Números 25:8

אל הקבה means TO THE TENT.

ותעצר המגפה, for G’d had already decreed previously that all the people who had spurned Him would not see the land of Israel. (Numbers 14,25). [this justifies the letter ה before a מגפה which we had not heard about. Ed,]

וידקר את שניהם, He stabbed them both. We can understand that Pinchas had a legal excuse to kill the Israelite who indulged in sex with a Gentile woman; however, what right did he have to kill the woman? There is no known halachah which excuses such a deed! If Pinchas suspected that Kosbi was married and as such had made herself guilty of adultery, who has ever heard of executing someone on the basis of such an assumption? Perhaps Pinchas applied the law applicable to animals to Kosbi. We have learned in Leviticus 20,15 that when humans and animals indulge in mutual sex even the animal has to be executed. We are also told in Ezekiel 23,20 that the flesh of Gentiles is equated with the flesh of donkeys.

הקבה, a kind of tent.

Many miracles were performed for him. [The miracles are as follows:] Zimri should have separated [from her], in which case Pinchas would not have been permitted to kill him, however he did not separate. Zimri should have called the members of his tribe to help him. Since [he struck] through the male organ of the man and the female organ of the woman, everyone knew why he had killed them. They did not become separated by the spear. An angel came and raised the lintel [of the tent] so that he could bring them out. An angel came and caused a plague among the people in order that the tribe of Shimon would be unsettled. The blade of the spear became elongated such that it entered them and came out on the other side. Pinchas’s arm was strengthened, and the spear did not break. Their blood did not fall onto Pinchas. They did not die [immediately, which would have] made Pinchas impure. Also, [when spearing something] that which is above becomes below, and that which is below becomes above, but here what was above remained above and was below remained below.

V. 8. קבה von קבב: höhlen (siehe Kap. 22, 11), davon קבה, ein kleines Zeltgemach, nach Menachot 31b oben enger als unten, noch in unserem "Alkoven" vorhanden. קבתה , von der damit verwandten Wurzel ”קוב“, wovon קבה, der Magen, die Bauchhöhle. — תעצר המגפה und bedurfte es auch nicht weiter der Ausführung der exzeptionellen Vers 4 angeordneten Intervention der Gerichte. רמב׳׳ן weist auf Dewarim 4, 3 hin: כי כל האיש אשר הלך אחרי בעל פעור השמידו ד׳ אלהיך מקרבך, wonach alle die dem Peorkult Verfallenen durch Gottes Hand ihren Untergang gefunden.

וידקור את שניהם, “and he stabbed both of them to death at the same time.” If in the process he became ritually unclean, there was nothing wrong with this, as our sages have said Pinchas only became a priest after he had killed Zimri, so that he had not been subject to the commandment not to knowingly become ritually unclean.

אל קבתה means IN HER STOMACH, similar to (Deut 18:3): “And the two cheeks and the maw (והקיבה)”. He miraculously struck exactly at Zimri’s male and her female parts so that everyone could plainly perceive that he had not killed them without just cause. Many other miracles, too, were wrought for him, as is related there (Sanhedrin 82b).

קבתה, her belly; compare Deuteronomy 18,3.והקבה.

If you were to ask that if it is so why didn't the Israelites execute Kosbi seeing she did not belong to a nation whom the Israelites had been forbidden to kill, [such as the Edomites and Moabites? Ed.] the answer may be that they had not yet offered peace to the Midianites. [Jews must extend an offer of peace and surrender to an adversary other than an invader before going to war against such people (Deut. 20,10) Ed.] While it is true that in the event, [at the beginning of the punitive campaign against Midian. Ed.] we do not find that the Midianites were offered a choice of surrender or even "transfer," this was after G'd had given specific instructions (28,17) to harass the Midianites. Alternatively, the Israelites may not have known the identity of the woman in question believing her to be a Moabite; in that event they were under stricture not to harm the Moabites. She may even have worn Moabite style garments in order to hide her true identity. The fact that the Torah describes her as a Midianite does not prove the Israelites were aware of this at the time.

אל קבתה, “through her belly.” The word is used in the sense of piercing a hole in Kings II 12,10: ויקב חור בדלתו, “he bored a hole through its door.”