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Numbers 31:1-8-And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the children of Israel. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” 3 So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm some of yourselves for war, and let them go against the Midianites to take vengeance for the LORD on Midian. 4 A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war.” 5 So there were recruited from the divisions of Israel one thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6 Then Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from each tribe; he sent them to the war with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the holy articles and the signal trumpets in his hand. 7 And they warred against the Midianites, just as the LORD commanded Moses, and they killed all the males. 8 They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of those who were killed—Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. Balaam the son of Beor they also killed with the sword. 9 And the children of Israel took the women of Midian captive, with their little ones, and took as spoil all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods. 10 They also burned with fire all the cities where they dwelt, and all their forts. 11 And they took all the spoil and all the booty—of man and beast. 12 Then they brought the captives, the booty, and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho. 13 And Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation, went to meet them outside the camp. 14 But Moses was angry with the officers of the army, with the captains over thousands and captains over hundreds, who had come from the battle. 15 And Moses said to them: “Have you kept all the women alive? 16 Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. 18 But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.
This passage of Scripture is often viewed as one of the most troubling in all of the Bible.
Now, let’s revisit the context of this passage.
Earlier in Numbers 25, the wicked king Balak devised (with the help of the wicked sorcerer, Balaam) a way to try and destroy the nation of Israel by seducing the males with Moabite women and joining with them in such wicked religious practices as ritual fornication and child sacrifice to the pagan gods.
Since the events of that time, there was no indication that the Midianites had repented and there was every reason to believe that they would not stop until they had destroyed the Jewish people!
So now in Numbers chapter 31, God commands that the Midianites be punished. Numbers 31:7 says that the Israelites did as the Lord commanded, and “killed all the males” of the Midianites. Later, Moses is angered at the soldiers actions, apparently because they left some of the Midianites alive. He then orders all of the Midianite males among “the little ones” to be killed, along with all the women who had been involved in the seduction of the Hebrews. After that, the Midianite women who had not been involved in these actions were to be allowed to be taken by the Hebrews.
What are we to make of all this?
Let’s study.
The Slaying Of “All The Males” Of The Midianites
The text tells us that “all of the males” of the Midianites were killed (Numbers 31:7). The text itself shows us that this was not understood literally. Observe that the Bible tells us that the soldiers carried out and obeyed this command of God, and yet many of the males were still left alive (Numbers 31:7, 11-13, 17). So clearly the text is using non-literal language in saying that “all the males” were slain. We know this is the case also since the Midianites show up again just a short time later (see Judges 6-8). This would be a difficult thing to accomplish if the Midianites were all completely wiped out here in Numbers 31!
The text is clearly using hyperbolic language and not to be understood literally.
The Males Among The “Little Ones”
What about the “little ones” among the males who were to be slain?
The phrase translated “little ones” is much wider in range than may be assumed at first glance. The Hebrew word employed here, taph, may be used to describe those who are not yet adults but who are able to possess some understanding of morality (Deuteronomy 1:39), showing they are not necessarily infants, toddlers, or small children. They are old enough to be involved in the sacred assemblies (Deuteronomy 29:11), and are able to have the Word of God read to them (Joshua 8:35). This all has led some to the conclusion that the “little ones” of Numbers 31 were children (not infants or toddlers) who were still living at home but who had not yet reached an age where they could be involved in adult duties such as military service (one of the major themes of the Book of Numbers). So, what was an upper age limit of these “little ones?” According to Numbers 1:3, Hebrew males had to be at least twenty years old in order to become a soldier and warrior in Israel. Assuming such guidelines were common in antiquity, this could possibly give us an indication of the upper age range of the “little ones” under discussion.
This all suggests that the “little ones” to be slain among the Midianites were those who were near the age of nineteen or twenty that could still then choose to fight against Israel.
Were The Midianite Women Doomed To Become Sex Slaves?
Some have argued that the women taken among the Midianites were to be some kind of sex slaves or trafficked victims among the Jewish people. However, that is not possible since the Bible explicitly forbad such barbaric practices among the Jewish people (Deuteronomy 21:10-14)! These women were taken and integrated into Hebrew society, enjoying the same benefits and privileges as other prisoners of war that the Law of God provided.
Torrey provides some enlightening thoughts on the subject.
There is one more thing that needs to be said. The sneering objection is sometimes made by infidels to the sparing, in certain cases, of the women as recorded in Deuteronomy 20: 10–15, and also the sparing of the women in Numbers 31: 21–35, 40, that the women were to be spared for immoral purposes. One writer has asked, “Am I to understand that God approved of taking, as tribute in spoils of war, a number of virgins, for a use that is only too obvious?” Words of similar import are to be found in a number of infidel books. Of course, what the questioner meant to imply is that these women were taken for immoral purposes. This is the use that is “only too obvious” to the objector. Even so, this is not at all obvious to any pure-minded man or woman who reads the actual Scripture account. There is in the Scripture account not the slightest intimation that the virgins were preserved for the use suggested. To the one whose own heart is evil and impure, of course, it will always be obvious that if women are preserved alive and taken as tribute, they are taken for this purpose; but this will not even occur to the pure-minded man or woman. The whole context of the passage in Numbers 31, which is the one most frequently cited in this connection by unbelievers, is a solemn warning against immorality of this kind. And so, far from this being a suggestion that God sanctions acts of impurity of this character, it shows how sternly God dealt with this impurity. In Numbers 25, we are told how the men of Israel did give themselves up to impurity with the daughters of Moab, but we are also told how, in consequence, “the anger of the Lord was kindled against [them]” (Numbers 25: 3), and how God visited their impurity with the sternest judgment. (See Numbers 25: 5, 8–9.) In the very chapter in question, every woman who had been guilty of impurity was slain. (See Numbers 31: 17.) And, in fact, it is suggested, at least by verse eighteen, that it was only the female children who could be spared. It was certainly an act of mercy on God’s part to deliver these “women children” from their evil surroundings and hand them over to Israel for training, where they would be brought in contact with a pure religion and trained up to become pure women. So, according to the record, far from being handed over to the Israelites for immoral purposes, they were entrusted to them for the highest purposes of all. (R.A. Torrey, Difficulties In The Bible, 707-723 (Kindle Edition): New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House)
Clearly, the women were not here taken as sex slaves.
One Other Possibility To Ponder
There is one last thing to consider here regarding the Midianites. It is possible that some of the commands in Numbers 31 regarding the Midianites were at the behest of Moses, and not necessarily ordered by God. Paul Copan explains this from a textual and historical analysis of the passage.
If so, this scenario brings some questions with it—yes, more indications of hyperbole. First, a generation or so later, “innumerable” Midianite soldiers on their camels rose up to fight against Israel (Judg. 6:5). John Goldingay notes: “Midian’s appearing in strength later in the Old Testament . . . would be odd if they were annihilated in the wilderness.”20…As retribution against the Midianites for intentionally seducing Israel away from the Lord, he “commanded” (tsavah) Moses that Israel’s army fight against Midianite men: “[ Israel] fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man” (Num. 31: 7 NIV). But after all of this, Moses added his own command—to kill the women (nonvirgins) and young boys too (vv. 15–18). What are we to make of these two commands? Is Moses’s command simply an extension of what God commanded, or is something more going on? Though I can’t go into detail here, I will list a few considerations that have prompted various scholars to take this second alternative seriously. 21 First, the Israelite army had already completed their task, “as the LORD commanded Moses” (v. 7). Apparently, once they carried out the Lord’s order, that was it—mission accomplished. Second, this appears to be Moses’s command and not the Lord’s. After all, the Israelite army had already done what the Lord commanded. Moses’s additional command seems to be an instance of giving a nonauthoritative judgment. This is comparable to the prophet Nathan telling David to build the temple (2 Sam. 7: 3). But the Lord told Nathan that David would not build it, but rather Solomon. We have another instance of this in 1 Kings 13: 7–26, where one prophet clearly has a word from God and another prophet tests the first prophet with a merely contrived word from the Lord (v. 18: “He lied to him”; cf. vv. 21–22). As with Moses, Nathan, and the deceptive prophet, we have indications within these narrative texts that these prophets are going beyond what God has said. These are instances of occasional off-the-cuff, nonauthoritative prophetic assertions. As we’ll see, Moses is going beyond what God commanded rather than fulfilling what God commanded. Moses is reformulating what divine “vengeance” (neqamah) calls for (Num. 31: 2, 3). Third, nothing happened after Moses’s command was issued. The focus at the end of the chapter is on the distribution of material spoils and permission for Israelite men to take Midianite wives for themselves if they chose to (cf. Deut. 21: 10–14). But there was no actual implementation of those orders. As we saw with Achan and his family (Josh. 7), the Old Testament certainly doesn’t recoil from mentioning such things if they actually happened—including potential or actual judgments against women (e.g., Num. 5: 20–22; 2 Kings 11: 20)—but we just don’t see any mention of follow-through in this particular Numbers 31 passage. 22 Fourth, we’ve already seen how this kind of “total-kill” language doesn’t appear to apply in case after case. For one thing, the affirmation that “all” of the Midianite men were killed is itself simply another hyperbolic statement. And as we’ve noted, if all Midianite men, women, and boys were literally eradicated (with the rest assimilated into Israel), that pretty much eliminates the entire Midianite nation. But “elimination” clearly didn’t happen. The Midianites lived on for generations, including getting a mention in the apocryphal book of Judith (2: 25–26), whose events took place in the fourth century BC. (Paul Copan, Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments, 216-218 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic)
Adding all of these things together, we still find a difficult and troubling picture. However, when carefully examined, we learn that the passage clearly employs a great deal of non-literal language, is often misconstrued by a simple surface reading and failure to appreciate historical context, and reenforces in powerful ways both the depravity of mankind and the goodness of God (even in His holy severity towards sin and wickedness).
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.