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The hapax legomenon קֻבָּה , which seems to appear out of context in the account of Phinehas killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in Num 25:8, has long puzzled commentators, scholars, and translators. This paper presents a new, text-critical explanation, suggesting that the original text read ויבא אחר איש ישראל וידקר את שניהם את איש ישראל אל הקבה ואת האשה אל קבתה , not including קֻבָּה at all: Phinehas pierced the man אֶל הַקֵּבָה , "through the belly," and the woman אֶל קֳבָתָהּ , "through her belly." The corruption occurred when the words אל הקבה were moved six words back in the text due to homoioteleuton and a partially successful correction. This unintentionally created the extant sentence ויבא אחר איש ישראל אל הקבה , in which קבה must denote a location, not an organ. Rather than קֵבָה , it was therefore read as קֻבָּה. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]