אור החיים — ושם איש ישראל המכה... זמרי בן סלוא

Q — The story of Pinchas's zealotry — his killing of the Israelite man and the Midianite woman — was told at the end of Parshat Balak, yet the names of the slain were withheld there and are only revealed here ('Zimri son of Salu... Kozbi daughter of Tzur'). Why delay naming them?

A — Or HaChaim attends to why the Torah suppressed the identities during the narrative of the act itself and discloses them only afterward, in the context of Pinchas's reward and the genealogical accounting. The deferral serves the Torah's measured handling of disgrace and honor — establishing the gravity of the deed and Pinchas's vindication before attaching the names, so that the focus during the act remains on the principle of the zealotry and its atonement for Israel rather than on the individuals.