The interpretation timeline

Num 25:9

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Num 25:9 · Douay-Rheims
“And there were slain four and twenty thousand men.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
220
A.D.
Tertullian Patristic
c. A.D. 150–220
“As far as that goes, we too have examples from this same past in favor of our own way of thinking, examples of a judgment on fornication which was not only not remiss but rather immediately executed. It is quite enough, I should think, that so great a number of the chosen people, twenty-four thousand, perished at one stroke after they had fornicated with the daughters of Midian. I prefer, however, for the glory of Christ, to derive ecclesiastical discipline from Christ.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.