Comentario sobre Números 31:16

הן הנה BEHOLD, THESE [WERE AN ENTICEMENT TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL] — These: this word tells us that they recognised them, saying, ‘This is the woman through whom so-and-so fell into sin” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 785).

הן הנה….בדבר בלעם, "these are the very ones…in the affair with Bileam, etc." We must try and understand what Moses meant when he referred to "these are the very ones, etc." Besides, why was Moses so long-winded in his reference to Bileam and (subsequently) to פעור. The matter will become clear once we understand why both Pinchas and the pious people who had gone with him committed such an error.

V. 16. הן ,הן הנה wie הן נזבח (Schmot 8, 22). היו לבני ישראל vielleicht wie כי תהיה לאיש זר. (Wajikra 22, 12) הייתי הלילה לאיש (Ruth I, 12), sie haben sich den Söhnen Israels hingegeben, um ihnen Untreue an Gott in Händen zu geben, um Peors willen, d. h. um dem Gotte der Unzucht zuzufallen.

בדבר בלעם למסור מעל, “to break faith (with G-d) through Bileam’s counsel;” he had taught these women how to lead the Israelites into grievous sin. (see verse 18 for details)

בדבר בלעם [THESE WERE AN ENTICEMENT] THROUGH THE WORD OF BALAAM — He had said to them: Even if you bring together all the hosts that are in the world you cannot overcome them. Are you perhaps more numerous than the Egyptians who had six hundred chosen chariots? Come and I will give you counsel: Their God has a hatred of immorality, etc., as it is related in the chapter חלק (Sanhedrin 106a) and in Sifrei Bamidbar 157:6.

Pinchas and his colleagues reasoned that the women who had played temptresses at the time had acted under duress, only carrying out their husbands' orders. Unmarried girls were similarly under duress having been ordered by their fathers to do whatever they had done to seduce the Israelites. Accordingly, Pinchas did not think that these women were guilty of death. Moses appreciated the considerations which had prompted Pinchas and his soldiers. This is why he pointed out that Pinchas and his colleagues would have been correct if the only thing these women had been guilty of was to cause the Israelites to indulge in illicit sex. However, in addition to their carrying out their husbands' and their fathers' orders respectively, they had committed another sin, one which they committed out of their own free will, namely that of Peor, i.e. getting the Israelites to worship that deity. According to Bamidbar Rabbah 20,23 these women prevailed on the Israelites to perform acts of obeisance to the image of Peor before letting them indulge their carnal desires. For this sin they were guilty of death, and this is what Moses referred to when he said הן הנה, i.e. they themselves (without outside pressure) initiated this part of the seduction. בדבר בלעם, at the instigation of Bileam, i.e. through the advice of Bileam to have the women offer themselves as sexual partners to the Israelites. If you examine the writings of our sages on the subject you will find that they attribute to Bileam only the advice that the Israelites be seduced sexually. Bileam never said that these women were to seduce the Israelites to worship or appear to worship any idols. By refusing to sleep with the Israelites unless the latter had first performed an act of idolatry, these women were guilty of the מעל בשם, the trespass against the Eternal G'd which our verse speaks about.