PHINEHAS. - Son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, the third high priest of Israel. His mother was a daughter of Phutiel, whom the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan identifies with Jethro the Midianite (Ex. 6:25). Even in his youth, Phinehas distinguished himself by the zeal he displayed in punishing the unfaithful Jews who, at Shittim, participated in the licentious worship of Baal-peor (q.v.) or the idol of Peor, an unclean Moabite deity. Moses, acting in the name of God, commanded that the guilty be put to death, and Phinehas, seeing that “a man of the children of Israel,” Zimri son of Salu, had brought “the Midianite Cozbi in among his brethren before the eyes of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation... went into the tent and pierced both of them” (Num. 25:6–8).
As a result, the high priesthood was promised to him and his descendants. His zeal was praised from age to age (Ps. 105 [106]:30–31; Ecclus. 45:23–25). Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees, was inspired by this example to wage war against Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Macc. 2:26–54). In the struggle against the Midianites, Moses sent a thousand men from each tribe, and with them Phinehas, “who took with him the holy vessels and the trumpets of alarm” (Num. 31:6). He was summoned, along with ten elders, to settle a religious dispute with the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who had erected an altar near the Jordan (Josh. 22:11–33). In the division of the land, he was assigned the city of Gibeon in the hill country of Ephraim. In the war against the Benjamites, he remained at Bethel to perform the duties of the high priest (Judg. 20:28). He was also the progenitor of the descendants of Korah (q.v.).
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