Numbers
31:1 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses,
saying, 2 Avenge the children of Israel
of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. 3 And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm
some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and
avenge the LORD of Midian. 4 Of every
tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the
war. 5 So there were delivered out of
the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand
armed for war. 6 And Moses sent them to
the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar
the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in
his hand.
Now Moses is called to
his last charge from God, to go to war against the Midianites. Moses’
father-in-law was a priest of Midian but the elders of Midian consorted with
the elders of Moab to have Balaam curse Israel. See Numbers 22:7.
Numbers
31:7 ¶ And they warred against the
Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. 8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the
rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur,
and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the
sword. 9 And the children of Israel took
all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the
spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. 10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they
dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire. 11 And they took all the spoil, and all the
prey, both of men and of beasts. 12
And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses,
and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel,
unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near
Jericho.
Balaam’s reward for
refusing to curse the Jews but being willing to subvert and pervert their way
to their moral destruction was death. What I wrote earlier in chapter 25 bears
repeating.
Here is what Balaam was
able to accomplish against Israel. He would not curse them. He could not. But
he could lay a stumblingblock in their path to service to God, a sexual
stumblingblock as we have already learned about the sexual content of ancient
religion. First, the point at from where this began would be when Balaam was
with Balak who was demanding a curse but getting a blessing.
Numbers
23:28 And Balak brought Balaam unto the
top of Peor, that looketh toward Jeshimon.
Numbers
31:16 Behold, these caused the children
of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD
in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the
LORD.
Revelation
2:14 But I have a few things against
thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught
Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Baalpeor
means obviously ‘god of Peor’
or ‘lord of Peor’, a physical location we have seen in the text. The context
indicates the sexual nature of the worship of this local god which,
unfortunately, like all of the hypersexualized worship of the Canaanites we’ve
already looked at was a stumblingblock to this race of former slaves of Egypt.
This is not a case of, “oh, them local girls sure are pretty,” considering what
you and I have learned about religious customs in Canaan so far. God orders
Moses to execute every one who fell to this very sensual worship of this local
Canaanite god.
Once the Israelites
began enjoying physical relations with the Canaanite women spiritual decline
was inevitable.
1Kings
11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange
women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites,
Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;
Nehemiah
13:26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin
by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was
beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even
him did outlandish women cause to sin.
Moses was not pleased
that the Israelites took women captives as we shall see in a shocking
expression of the genocide God had commanded for the wicked Canaanites. Some
harsh commands are just around the corner.
Numbers
31:13 ¶ And Moses, and Eleazar the
priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them
without the camp. 14 And Moses was wroth
with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and
captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. 15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all
the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused
the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass
against the LORD in the matter 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 that hath
known man by lying with him. 18 But all
the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for
yourselves. 19 And do ye abide without
the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath
touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third
day, and on the seventh day. 20 And
purify all your raiment, and all that is made of skins, and all work of
goats’ hair, and all things made of wood. 21 And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of
war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the
LORD commanded Moses; 22 Only the gold,
and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead, 23 Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall
make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it
shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the
fire ye shall make go through the water. 24
And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be
clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.
Moses refers back to
the what is reported in Numbers 25 about the counsel of Balaam that promoted
the pollution of the Israelite men by the seduction by the women of Midian and
the erotic-religious influence they held over their conquerors. So, now, Moses
enacts a brutal cleansing of the people of Israel, all the male children
captured and the women who were not virgins were to die.
While this is something
hard for us to understand, perhaps, it is important to realize the kind of
culture the ancient world existed in and how sexual relations were linked with
idolatry, the religion of the heathen.
Numbers
31:25 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses,
saying, 26 Take the sum of the prey that
was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and
the chief fathers of the congregation: 27
And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon
them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation: 28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men
of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the
persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep: 29 Take it of their half, and give it
unto Eleazar the priest, for an heave offering of the LORD. 30 And of the children of Israel’s half, thou
shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses,
and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites,
which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD. 31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the
LORD commanded Moses. 32 And the booty, being
the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand
and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep, 33 And threescore and twelve thousand beeves,
34 And threescore and one thousand
asses, 35 And thirty and two thousand
persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him. 36 And the half, which was the portion of
them that went out to war, was in number three hundred thousand and seven and
thirty thousand and five hundred sheep: 37
And the LORD’S tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and
fifteen. 38 And the beeves were
thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD’S tribute was threescore and
twelve. 39 And the asses were
thirty thousand and five hundred; of which the LORD’S tribute was
threescore and one. 40 And the persons were
sixteen thousand; of which the LORD’S tribute was thirty and two
persons. 41 And Moses gave the tribute, which
was the LORD’S heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the LORD
commanded Moses. 42 And of the children
of Israel’s half, which Moses divided from the men that warred, 43 (Now the half that pertained unto the
congregation was three hundred thousand and thirty thousand and seven
thousand and five hundred sheep, 44 And
thirty and six thousand beeves, 45 And
thirty thousand asses and five hundred, 46
And sixteen thousand persons;) 47
Even of the children of Israel’s half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both
of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of
the tabernacle of the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.
Let’s examine verse 28.
It contains some important information that helps us understand reality better.
28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men
of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons,
and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:
Of every five hundred
people and animals taken one was to be given as a tribute to God. Here it is
very clear that God calls a beeve or cow, an ass, and a sheep a soul. So, at
least certain animals do have souls unlike what some preachers say. The soul is
the seat of self-identity, that acknowledges that I am me and not another.
Job
12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every
living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
Intelligent animals
think as anyone who has had a long and close association with cattle, dogs,
cats, etc. has seen. Those beasts have spirits; thoughts and emotion, to some
extent a reasoning mind. To think of them as simply blind biological machines
that operate solely on instinct is foolish and not borne out by observation. Solomon
asks a rhetorical question challenging what man thinks he knows in a book,
Ecclesiastes, that may be the precursor to the musings of Greek philosophers
although his conclusion at the end of the book is unlike theirs.
Ecclesiastes
3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the
estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might
see that they themselves are beasts. 19
For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing
befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one
breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. 20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust,
and all turn to dust again.
21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth
upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
What separates man from
beast we might ask? We are accountable and they are not for a sin nature we
inherited and they are victims of our rebellion against God. Some would say
that our ability to speak words distinguishes us, but in the following passage;
Numbers
22:28 And the LORD opened the mouth of
the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast
smitten me these three times? 29 And
Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a
sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee. 30 And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine
ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I
ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.
…speech intelligible to
us is denied them in a way that it was not in the Garden of Eden when a serpent
spoke. The serpent in the Garden of Eden could have been a dragon/dinosaur as
in history dragons are sometimes called serpents or worms, like Scotland’s The
Linton Worm. Nevertheless, it was not a person and it was speaking. We believe
that Satan was that serpent. He is described in appearance and great detail in
Job, chapter 41, said to be the King over all the children of pride.
But, it seems clear to
me that we sinned and the only other creature that went against God was that
serpent who paid a physical price for its conspiracy. Was he the ancestor of
all snakes? I don’t know and neither do you. This may have been referring to
one unique creature, a tool of Satan or Satan himself, a special creature like
the great fish that swallowed Jonah.
Genesis
3:14 And the LORD God said unto the
serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat
all the days of thy life:
Here, as well, are
slaves captured in war with rules concerning them we have seen that are very
specific. This has been compared although on very flimsy grounds to racial
slavery in the Americas in centuries past. But, that was based mostly on one
African king or chief kidnapping adults and children of other tribes or
kingdoms, even selling his own people when profitable, and selling them to
traders who shipped the tortured souls to some other part of the world. An African
king in the 1750s was noteworthy in that he had a higher verifiable yearly
income than the richest duke in England, an income based on making slaves of
his own and other peoples. Slave narratives reveal children kidnapped by agents
of these kings and chiefs right from their doorstep or on the way to get water
for their family. The vast majority were shipped to Spanish and Portuguese
possessions in the Americas and worked to death rather quickly. In Haiti, once
a French colony, thousands of slaves had to be imported yearly to make up for
the losses. While I do not commend Hebrew slavery, consider the alternative,
being slaughtered in Canaan.
Numbers
31:48 ¶ And the officers which were
over thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and captains of
hundreds, came near unto Moses: 49 And
they said unto Moses, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are
under our charge, and there lacketh not one man of us. 50 We have therefore brought an oblation for the
LORD, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets,
rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the
LORD. 51 And Moses and Eleazar the
priest took the gold of them, even all wrought jewels. 52 And all the gold of the offering that they
offered up to the LORD, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of
hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels. 53 (For the men of war had taken spoil,
every man for himself.) 54 And Moses and
Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds,
and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial
for the children of Israel before the LORD.
I only want to say here
that there is a stark difference between what Moses and Eleazar will do with
the collected gold and what Aaron did with the gold he collected in the
transgression of the golden calf.
No comments:
Post a Comment