The
Lord
spoke to Moses, saying, “Avenge the Israelites on the Midianites;1
afterwards you shall be gathered to your people.”2
So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your number for the war, so that they may go against Midian, to execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian3. You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.” So out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe were conscripted, twelve thousand armed for battle.
Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for sounding the alarm in his hand.4 They did battle against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses,5 and killed every male.6 They killed the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian, in addition to others who were slain by them; and they also killed Balaam son of Beor7 with the sword. The Israelites took the women of Midian8 and their little ones9 captive;10 and they took all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods as booty. All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animals.11 Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the Israelites, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? These women here, on Balaam’s advice,12 made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones,13 and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him.14 But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.15 Camp outside the camp for seven days; whoever of you has killed any person or touched a corpse, purify yourselves and your captives on the third and on the seventh day.16 You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, everything made of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”
Eleazar the priest said to the troops who had gone to battle: “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded Moses: gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead— everything that can withstand fire, shall be passed through fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless it shall also be purified with the water for purification; and whatever cannot withstand fire, shall be passed through the water. You must wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you shall be clean; afterwards you may come into the camp.”
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the ancestral houses of the congregation make an inventory of the booty captured, both human and animal. Divide the booty into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the Lord one item out of every five hundred,17 whether persons,18 oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats. Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord. But from the Israelites’ half you shall take one out of every fifty,19 whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats—all the animals—and give them to the Levites who have charge of the tabernacle of the Lord.”
Then Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord had commanded Moses:20
The booty remaining from the spoil that the troops had taken totalled six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand oxen, sixty-one thousand donkeys, and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known a man by sleeping with him.
The half-share, the portion of those who had gone out to war, was in number three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep and goats, and the Lord’s tribute of sheep and goats was six hundred and seventy-five. The oxen were thirty-six thousand, of which the Lord’s tribute was seventy-two. The donkeys were thirty thousand five hundred, of which the Lord’s tribute was sixty-one.21 The persons were sixteen thousand,22 of which the Lord’s tribute was thirty-two persons.23 Moses gave the tribute, the offering for the Lord, to Eleazar the priest,24 as the Lord had commanded Moses.25
As for the Israelites’ half, which Moses separated from that of the troops, the congregation’s half was three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep and goats, thirty-six thousand oxen, thirty thousand five hundred donkeys, and sixteen thousand persons. From the Israelites’ half Moses took one of every fifty, both of persons and of animals, and gave them to the Levites who had charge of the tabernacle of the Lord; as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, approached Moses, and said to Moses, “Your servants have counted the warriors who are under our command, and not one of us is missing.26 And we have brought the Lord’s offering, what each of us found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, ear-rings, and pendants, to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.”27
Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from them, all in the form of crafted articles. And all the gold of the offering that they offered to the Lord, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels. (The troops had all taken plunder for themselves.) So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord.
1 Israelite men are punishing Midianite men for something that the Israelite men willfully did with Midianite women.
So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your number for the war, so that they may go against Midian, to execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian3. You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.” So out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe were conscripted, twelve thousand armed for battle.
Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for sounding the alarm in his hand.4 They did battle against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses,5 and killed every male.6 They killed the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian, in addition to others who were slain by them; and they also killed Balaam son of Beor7 with the sword. The Israelites took the women of Midian8 and their little ones9 captive;10 and they took all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods as booty. All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animals.11 Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the Israelites, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? These women here, on Balaam’s advice,12 made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones,13 and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him.14 But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.15 Camp outside the camp for seven days; whoever of you has killed any person or touched a corpse, purify yourselves and your captives on the third and on the seventh day.16 You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, everything made of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”
Eleazar the priest said to the troops who had gone to battle: “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded Moses: gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead— everything that can withstand fire, shall be passed through fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless it shall also be purified with the water for purification; and whatever cannot withstand fire, shall be passed through the water. You must wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you shall be clean; afterwards you may come into the camp.”
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the ancestral houses of the congregation make an inventory of the booty captured, both human and animal. Divide the booty into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the Lord one item out of every five hundred,17 whether persons,18 oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats. Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord. But from the Israelites’ half you shall take one out of every fifty,19 whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats—all the animals—and give them to the Levites who have charge of the tabernacle of the Lord.”
Then Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord had commanded Moses:20
The booty remaining from the spoil that the troops had taken totalled six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand oxen, sixty-one thousand donkeys, and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known a man by sleeping with him.
The half-share, the portion of those who had gone out to war, was in number three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep and goats, and the Lord’s tribute of sheep and goats was six hundred and seventy-five. The oxen were thirty-six thousand, of which the Lord’s tribute was seventy-two. The donkeys were thirty thousand five hundred, of which the Lord’s tribute was sixty-one.21 The persons were sixteen thousand,22 of which the Lord’s tribute was thirty-two persons.23 Moses gave the tribute, the offering for the Lord, to Eleazar the priest,24 as the Lord had commanded Moses.25
As for the Israelites’ half, which Moses separated from that of the troops, the congregation’s half was three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep and goats, thirty-six thousand oxen, thirty thousand five hundred donkeys, and sixteen thousand persons. From the Israelites’ half Moses took one of every fifty, both of persons and of animals, and gave them to the Levites who had charge of the tabernacle of the Lord; as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, approached Moses, and said to Moses, “Your servants have counted the warriors who are under our command, and not one of us is missing.26 And we have brought the Lord’s offering, what each of us found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, ear-rings, and pendants, to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.”27
Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from them, all in the form of crafted articles. And all the gold of the offering that they offered to the Lord, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels. (The troops had all taken plunder for themselves.) So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord.
1 Israelite men are punishing Midianite men for something that the Israelite men willfully did with Midianite women.
2
God commands violent retribution as the final act of Moses's life.
3
Moses emphasizes that the preparations for war are actually God's
judgement.
4
The presence of the priest and the temple vessels show God's
presence with the Israelite army.
5
Moses is obedient to the end.
6
Almost genocide?
7
Balaam? Wasn't he a prophet who spoke loyally God's word?
8
Wait, wasn't taking the Midianite women the whole problem in the
first place? So shouldn't the warriors now be punished doubly for
repeating the act even after the first judgement?
9
Little ones!
10
This appears to be slavery.
11
Emphasizing the booty again.
12
Balaam is to blame for the women's actions? This seems quite
different from the portrayal of Balaam in Numbers 20-22.
13
The slaughter of children who had nothing to do with the sin of the
Israelite men.
14
Moses recognizes the problem, but his solution is disturbing. Why
aren't these warriors punished like the previous men were?
15
“Keep alive for yourselves”. The boys, who were no more to
blame than the virgin girls, are killed, while the girls seem to be
kept just for the lust/benefit of the Israelite warriors. This
passage turns my stomach.
16
Slightly jarring reminder of the purity laws.
17
One out of 500 seems like a small tithe.
18
How will these persons be used as a “tribute to the Lord”?
19
The Levites get somewhat more of this group.
20
Obedience is still emphasized.
21
All in all, that's an enormous number of animals.
22
That's a huge number of virgins for just 12,000 warriors. Perhaps
many were married off to their sons and other relatives.
23
To be sacrificed/offered or what?
24
What will Eleazar do with 32 virgins?
25
Yet again, obedience.
26
Tens of thousands of men killed without the Israelites suffering a
single death themselves.
Take-home: Corrupting forces that could lead Israel away from God, like the Midianites, are so dangerous they must be completely destroyed. God is given the credit for their destruction, and receives offerings from the booty in recognition of this.
Usually I use this space to focus on the actual point of the text, and not secondary questions of origin or historicity or morality. But this passage moved me so much I have to respond here. I have heard a range of justifications for this passage – that holiness supersedes everything and the Midianites were threatening the holiness of God's people; that the Midianites were so sinful they all deserved to die, including the children who God knew would be sinful themselves in the future; that Israel was God's one hope for the world and all measures were acceptable for them to survive; that without prisons and police force or national defense, only total war could prevent retribution; that slavery for the women was actually a blessing considering their men were gone. In fact, I have believed or retold most of those answers myself over the years.
But further study and time with God have given me doubts, often based on problems in the text itself, and I no longer buy these answers. The Israelites have shown themselves exceedingly capable of abandoning God en masse without any external influence, from the golden calf of Exodus 32 to the constant grumbling and revolts in Numbers 11-21. And Israel was God's hope, but wouldn't the methodical slaughter of captives and children darken their hearts and make it harder for them to spread the message of God's love? As far as disobedient people being a bad influence, Israel in the future will actually be given over to the foreign pagan nations like Babylon, the very epitome of sin, in order to teach them a lesson, so the corrupting influence of foreign gods can't be that dangerous a concern. And in the Pentateuch there already have been, and will continue to be, many examples of Israel engaging in war without total war being necessary. Finally, the slaughter of men, women, and male children, but the keeping of female virgins for themselves, can only be seen as self-serving.
These problems can be aded to the external historical difficulties. There is no evidence of an exodus of 2,000,000 slaves from Egypt at any point in history, nor of Pharaoh and his men dying in the way that is described or anything like it. There is no evidence that the Israelite nation was remotely this large until many hundreds of years after these events, if Israelites as a people even existed at all yet. There is no historical evidence of the wars in question or of such peoples and cities being destroyed at these times. And there is no evidence that these events set in 1400 B.C. were written any earlier than 600-800 B.C. at the earliest.
Taking all that into account and putting it before God in prayer, I have come to my best understanding that this narrative does not reflect actual historical events. It likely was oral tradition circulating in the 9th-7th centuries B.C., but the degree to which it is rooted in actual events 500-700 years earlier is likely very limited. (Is there any other example of 500-700 year old oral tradition reflecting actual historical events accurately without having being written down much earlier?) Instead, it should be read as an explanation in story form for what Israel understood about God. God is THIS holy that we can't mix with sin, the consequences of wandering from Him are THIS big, if God were to protect us in our obedience to Him the outcome would be THIS lopsided, and God should be obeyed in ALL circumstances. There are numerous examples of Jewish people taking these lessons from the text. But I know of no examples of the Jewish nation ever actually trying to replicate genocide and the mass slavery of foreign virgins with this text as their teacher. I do not believe the text was ever written to encourage such violence.
However, there is still the question of secondary effects. Could passages like this be used to in part justify war, massacre, genocide, slavery or sexual domination of women? Yes, and they have, even by the Church. Such an understanding completely misses the main point of the text, but the interpretation could still be made and many have been deceived, especially those claiming Christ. I do not believe that the text was written with justifying slaughter in mind. God's direct command to Moses was not going to have any repeated historical parallels. But, in the imperfection of the Jewish authors, they used a storytelling device that could be twisted, and men who intend ill for others will twist it to this day.
That, in a nutshell, is why I believe that this passage tells us something about God, and is honest to God in describing true attributes about God, but is not meant to depict actual historical events. And I do not believe that God condones the events that are described here, or condones even the way in which the story is told except in his great grace and willingness to let humans lead the way in leading other humans to Him, however many mistakes they may make along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment