Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and [so] the plague was stayed.
Ver. 30. Then stood up Phinehas] Animose surrexit (Vatab.). By a secret, heroical, and extraordinary motion of God's Spirit, such as may not be drawn into example. All things reported and commended in Scripture may not be imitated. One Birchet, by example of Phinehas and Ehud, thought he might have killed a great personage in this land, whom he looked upon as a naughty man, and God's enemy. A particular example will afford a general instruction, when the equity of the thing done is universal, and the cause common, otherwise not, saith learned Junius.
And executed judyment] Not tarrying for the sentence of the judges. The Chaldee rendereth it, And prayed. Execution of justice is that actual, magisterial, and majestical kind of prayer that will stay the plague when nothing else will.