Numbers 31:1

This chapter records the war of extermination commanded by God against Midian. It was not a war of personal vengeance, but a war of execution of the wrath of a just God against a people who deliberately became God's enemies and sought by every device they knew to frustrate the Divine purpose with regard to Israel.

The Christian student will encounter a great freight of anti-Biblical and even anti-Christian comment in the books which allegedly "learned men" have written on Numbers. Here are random samples of such false comments from several authors throughout the current century:

This is not a history, but Midrash.[1] The account is more ideal than historical.[2] This tale ... is commonly thought to be unhistorical. It may perhaps be a pious invention of later times.[3] The report of the Midianite war contains little that is factual.[4]

These comments dated from 1903,1929, and 1968, respectively indicate that the critical scholars have learned absolutely nothing at all during the present century, but are still parroting the worn-out denials which first became prevalent in the infamous International Critical Commentary at the turn of the current century. What is the alleged evidence to support such denials? If we rule out the subjective opinions of unbelievers, there isn't any! There is absolutely nothing in the text of Numbers that can be logically opposed to the acceptance of every word in the book as the truth of God! Great scholars, indeed the greatest scholars, have not ceased to shout this:

"There is no good ground for calling in question the correctness of the narrative ... there is nothing in the statements (about the numbers of the animals taken, etc.) to astonish any one who has formed correct notions about the wealth of such nomad tribes in cattle, etc.[5] The unique names of the five kings of Midian, etc ... are details that run counter to the view of some that the chapter is late Midrash.[6]

Another kind of objection to this chapter is found in the adverse judgment of wicked men who brazenly question the morality of God Himself in ordering the extermination of the Midianites. This type of objection has been parlayed by evil men into a general rejection not merely of the Bible, but of Christianity itself, man in his sinful arrogance supposing that "modern man" has improved upon the morality of the God of the Bible. This excerpt from the daily news (Houston Post, Christmas Day, 1985) is an excellent example:

"The Bible depicts God's ruthlessness when He tells His chosen people to go into war and to save "nothing alive that breatheth" (Deuteronomy 20:16) and to `kill suckling babies' (1 Samuel 15:3).

To a great extent, present-day wars stem from religious fanaticism. God has never intervened to stop a war! Contrary Biblical quotations offered will not erase those above, but will be an admission that the Bible is contradictory."[7]

Significantly, this article appeared without comment by Lynn Ashby, Editor of the Post. It is a type of the so-called "popular wisdom" with regard to the Holy Bible, frequently found in columns like Ashby's, or Ann Landers', or of some other self-appointed custodian of the public morality. A believer hardly needs to be told that such views are the ultimate in Biblical ignorance!

Yes, indeed! God did, in fact, order the Midianites exterminated. So what?

If God, instead of sending an earthquake, or a flood, or a pestilence, or a famine, was pleased to order His people to avenge his cause, such a commission was surely just and right ... Unless it can be proved that the wicked Canaanites did not deserve their doom, objectors only prove their dislike of God and their love of God's enemies.[8] Other objections will also disappear in a more detailed examination of the sacred text.

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm ye men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian, to execute Jehovah's vengeance on Midian. Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war. So there were delivered, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. And Moses sent them, a thousand of every tribe, to the war, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. And they warred against Midian, as Jehovah commanded Moses; and they slew every male. And they slew the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. And the children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, they took for a prey. And all their cities in the places wherein they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burnt with fire. And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of man and of beast. And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and unto Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan at Jericho."

Unbelievers usually begin their analysis here by shouting that the size of the victory makes it impossible that such a great triumph was achieved by only 12,000 men. First, it was God's triumph, not that of the 12,000! Their status was exactly the same as that of the 300 helpers of Gideon to whom God also gave a great victory. Secondly, the word rendered "thousand" here is actually [~'eleph]; "This word is here and elsewhere translated `a thousand,' but more likely means contingent or unit."[9] If this recent light (1979) on the meaning of the ancient word [~'eleph] is received, there is envisioned here not the triumph of a mere 12,000 men, but of twelve divisions, a far different thing. Also, the fact that the soldiers actually participating in the struggle received exactly half of all the booty seems much more consistent with this understanding of the word.

Another "alleged difficulty" occurs in the fact that God spoke of "avenging Israel" (Numbers 31:2) and of "the vengeance of Jehovah" (Numbers 31:3). The Jewish writer Yakar pointed out that, of course, "It was both."[10] These Midianites had sinned against God in that they had tricked and deceived God's people into apostasy and immorality, but this was also a sin against God's people, for as a result of their actions at Baal-Peor, 24,000 of them died in a plague.

Another quibble often encountered here is that "it was the women of Moab" who took the lead in Israel's seduction, but Divine execution fell upon Midian. Yes, "The daughters of Moab had also taken part in the seduction (Numbers 25:1,2), but they had done so at the instigation of the Midianites, and not of their own accord. And, therefore, the Midianites only were to atone for the wickedness."[11] Also, in this connection, it is good to remember that, "However hateful the sins of licentiousness and idolatry may be, they have never by themselves alone aroused the exterminating wrath of God. Midian Was smitten because he had deliberately used those sins as weapons wherewith to take the life of Israel."[12]

"The vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm ..." (Numbers 31:6). It is ambiguous as to just what articles were carried by Phinehas, but the only thing certain is that the silver trumpets (Numbers 10) were carried. In fact, it may be that they alone accompanied the army. T. Carson read the coordinate conjunction "and" in this passage as also having an explanatory meaning, thus identifying the trumpets as which vessels of the sanctuary were taken.[13]

It should always be remembered that in this terrible act of vengeance, Israel did not act upon their own behalf at all, but as instruments of God, and upon his express command to do so. As Henry pointed out, they had authority for their actions which no man or nation on earth today can claim. They had Moses to relate to them, "what God commanded." People today have no such authority.

The failure of some people today to understand what happened here is due to their failure to take into account God's total abhorrence of sin, and of his eternal anger against arrogant and wicked men who rebel against God's authority. The record of the deluge is a record of God's destruction of the whole human race (except for a remnant), because of their incurable wickedness, so great that the family of Adam at that point had become a cancer upon the earth itself. God's destructions of nations and cities as extensively revealed in the Bible are but other facets of this same characteristic of the Eternal Justice, and our evil world has by no means seen the last of it. Is it right, just, or moral, for God to do this? Certainly! Because of its application in this very chapter, we are impelled to repeat again our illustration of the derail switches near Moffatt Tunnel, Colorado, where once the intercontinental railroad climbed the mighty switchbacks over the continental divide. A traveler asked the old station master at the village lying at the base of the great divide, what the derail switches were for at the apex of each switchback. He said, "In case a train got out of control, it would have been thrown into a canyon, for it could not have been saved. The loss of the train would have spared the ruination of the whole switchback complex and the village also." If people can understand that, they should have no trouble with God's throwing the derail switch on any city, nation, or civilization, hopelessly given over to wickedness and violence.

Before leaving these twelve verses, we should note another thing. "Midian" as used in these lines evidently does not mean the whole extensive race of the Midianites, but, as indicated by the names of the kings slain, and especially the limited number of them, they were that portion of the Midianites who "dwelt in the country," namely, that part of the country about to be occupied by Israel, as related in Joshua 13:20. This understanding harmonizes with the fact that, "The Midianites appeared again some two centuries later as a very formidable power."[14] Whitelaw was also of the opinion, based upon the context, and the separate mention of the five kings, and Zur, and Balaam, that, "They were slain, not in battle, but as the context implies, by way of judicial execution. (See Numbers 25 and also Joshua 13:22."[15]

In Numbers 31:11, the mention of the prey and the spoil refers to two different portions of the total booty. "Prey refers to the captives and livestock; the spoil refers to the ornaments and other effects."[16]

For some, the most difficult part of this narrative comes next.