March 26, 2021
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Reading along with us in Numbers? Here’s today’s reading:
Numbers 31 (NIV)
Vengeance on the Midianites
1 The Lord said to Moses, 2“Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them.......Continue Reading
The idea of vengeance can seem outside of the character of God but He does punish when He needs to. When we take vengeance into our own hands that it is when it becomes dangerous and sinful.
God lead them into this battle and they were victorious and all that were responsible for the seduction of the Israelites were punished.
There’s lots to glean from this chapter. The first is you don’t mess with God’s people. It is clear the Midianites were in league with Moab in seducing Israel in chapter 25. Because of that, God sends out Moses to execute vengeance…after all it is for the the Lord to repay. We also learn that the enigmatic Balaam is also killed in the battle and it is explained that he was the one who promoted the idea of the Midianite women to seduce the Israelites sexually and the lead them to false worship. I knew there was something insidious about him that didn’t come out earlier in Numbers. So he and the women must pay for the loss and destruction they caused. It is also interesting to see that the practices needed in dealing with a dead body apply in warfare as well.
It was also intriguing to see how the spoils of battle were divided. Certainly the contributions of the soldiers were recognized primarily, but so were the priests, levites and Israelite community. What a good way to acknowledge that those responsible for spiritual matters and those on the home front make warfare possible and successful as well. There is great wisdom found there which was uncommon in the way spoils normally were divided….
Numbers 30
John 1: 15-18
I appreciate Kaitlyn posting here to reenforce that you don’t need to be reading along with us to join in this endeavor to fellowship around the Word as well as be accountable to be in it!
Numbers 31
Numbers 31
Numbers 27-31
Numbers 31
God instructs Israel to take vengeance on the Midianites. I know that God says, “vengeance is mine”, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t want vengeance and pray for it. David prays for vengeance often, I found. In our post-Christ world we pray for our enemies and those who persecute us and rely on Him to implement vengeance for justice.
It is rough to think of them killing women and children. I have been studying through Joshua and thinking and studying what God’s word says about warfare and capital punishment. I had a lot of, “why?” moments but then realized the depth of the sin of the Canaanites…..idolatry in the form of fornication in worship, child sacrifice….satanic. You can start to understand Phinehas’ righteous actions in Numbers 25.
13Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16“They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.