Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds: and the plague broke in upon them.
Read Chapter 106
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
23. "They were initiated also unto Baalpeor;" that is, were consecrated to the Gentile idol; "and ate the offerings of the dead" (ver. 28). "Thus they provoked Him to anger with their own inventions; and destruction was multiplied among them" (ver. 29). As if He had deferred the lifting up of His hand which was to cast them down in the desert, and to cast out their seed among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands; as the Apostle saith: "And even asthey did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." "`Destruction,' therefore, `was multiplied among them,' when they were heavily punished for their heavy sins."
Multiplied. All who had murmured perished, or this may relate to the 24,000, Numbers xxv. 9. (Calmet)
Ezechiel xx. 23. St. Paul (1 Corinthians x. 8.) speaks of those 23,000 slain by the Levites. The Hebrew which has only 3,000 must be inaccurate. Temporal chastisements were intended to prefigure those which are eternal, as the Jews knew that such rewards and punishments were to be considered (Matthew xix. 16.; Berthier) as the spiritual sense of the law. (Grotius, Jur. ii. 20, 39.)
