A Midianitish woman. Rather, "the Midianitish woman." אֶת־הַמִּדְיָנִית. Septuagint, τὴν ΄αδιανίτην. The writer deals with an incident only too notorious, and which by the peculiar aggravation of its circumstances had fixed itself deeply in the popular memory.
This is the first mention of the Midianites in connection with this affair, and it prepares us to learn without surprise that they were in reality the authors of this mischief. All the congregation,… who were weeping.
According to the loose sense in which this expression is used throughout the Pentateuch, it evidently means that those who truly represented the nation, not only as a political, but also as a religions community, were gathered in this distress before the presence of their invisible King.
They wept on account of the wrath of God provoked; probably also on account of the wrath of God already gone forth in the form of a pestilence.