Cozbi

Cozbi (meaning deceitful or sliding away) was a Midianite woman whose brazen liaison with an Israelite man during the apostasy at Baal-peor precipitated both a plague and a decisive act of priestly zeal. While Israel was engaging in sexual immorality with Moabite women and worshipping their gods — an apostasy that brought a plague killing twenty-four thousand people — an Israelite named Zimri publicly brought Cozbi, daughter of the Midianite chief Zur, into the camp in full view of the weeping congregation and Moses (Numbers 25:6–8). The priest Phinehas son of Eleazar rose, took a spear, followed them, and ran them both through, ending the plague.

Cozbi's father Zur was "head of the people of a father's house in Midian" (Numbers 25:15), making her a chieftain's daughter whose presence in the Israelite camp was no accident. The LORD cited her death specifically when commanding Israel to treat the Midianites as enemies, because they "have harassed you with their wiles" in the affair of Peor (Numbers 25:18). Phinehas's act was counted to him as righteousness "from generation to generation forever" (Psalm 106:31), and the Levitical priesthood derived special honor from his decisive intervention in this crisis of Israel's covenant faithfulness.