Numbers 25:11
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.
The verse belongs to Israel's national apostasy at Baal-peor at Shittim, when the people, including rulers and leading men, joined in heathen worship and kindled God's wrath against them. That sin brought a plague in which twenty-four thousand died. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, rose from the congregation and thrust through the Israelite man and the Midianitish woman in the tent, acting decisively to execute judgment on the open wrong and defiance and staying the plague.
God regarded this act as being zealous for His sake among Israel, turning His wrath away so that He did not consume Israel in His jealousy. His action made an atonement for Israel. For this God gave Phinehas His covenant of peace and to him and his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood.
The Baal-peor episode distinguishes those destroyed for following Baal from those who remained alive by cleaving to the Lord. This history happened as examples and is written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, to hearken and do the statutes and judgments and live, and to cleave to the Lord. It calls all to take heed lest one fall, and to trust God to make a way to escape temptation.