“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written ‘it is mine to avenge; I will repay, ‘says the Lord.” Rm.12:19
# 41 2026 Dev. Numbers 31. The Lord’s Vengeance! Read all of chapter thirty-one first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s Story. Do you believe that this may also be part of our story, in our time? All passages are taken from the NIV.
Nu. 31 The Midianites.
Vs.1-6. “The Lord said to Moses, take vengeance on the Midianites.” This punishment has to do with Baal Peor when the Israelite men went with the Moabites and the Midianite women to worship and adulterated themselves at Baal worship. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham by Keturah, Moses’ father in law, was from that tribe. God punished the Israelites’ with a plague, 24,000 died, I assume men but women may have been involved as well. The plague was only stopped by the priest, Phinehas, by striking an offending couple by running them through with a spear. Now God was about to punish the Midianites for following the advice of Balaam. This will be Moses’ last assignment. 10,000 men were conscripted from each tribe. “Moses sent them into battle…” This was a draft, not a personal choice. The draft happened to me, some people resisted, moved to Canada, but based on Rm.13, I served and survived, I thank God.
Vs.7-12 “…as the Lord commanded Moses, they killed every man…and the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam, son of Beor, with the sword…they captured all the women and children… herds and flocks…and burned all the cities and camps.”
Vs.13-24 When they returned. “Moses was angry with the officers of the army…Have you allowed all the women to live?” They were the ones who led the men of Israel astray. “Now kill all the boys. And kill all the women who have slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has not slept with a man.” Eleazar the priest laid down the law of cleansing, for those who killed and those touching a dead body as well as every captured item that could withstand fire must be purified, everything else with cleansing water. It was a brutal world in those days, but it highlights the seriousness of that situation. Balaam was not allowed to curse the Israelites as Balak wanted but he got around it by giving Satanic advice. Taking that advice cost everyone opposing God’s people, complete destruction.
Dividing the Spoils
Vs.25-47 “The Lord said to Moses, ‘You and Eleazar the priest and the family heads of the community are to count all the people and animals that were captured. Divide the spoils equally between the soldiers who took part in the battle and the rest of the community.’” The priest was to get part of the soldier’s share, one out of five hundred, of people, cattle, donkeys or sheep. From the rest of the people one out of fifty for the Levites, for the tabernacle. God wanted His people to be treated equitably, so, also, we should treat people around us.
Vs. 48-54 “Then the officers who were over the units of the army- the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds- went to Moses and said to him… we counted all our men and not one is lost.” There were no fatalities among the Israelites. This prompted the commanders to give an offering to the Lord. Moses and Eleazer accepted all the gold and crafted articles. They received about 420 pounds of gold, in today’s value that is around $ 29,785,320, an amazing offering. If all of us would give the church what we could really afford, our mission organizations would have all the money needed for a serious effort to reach people here and overseas. Where there is a will there is a way, I am afraid not enough of us will. We continue to trust God!
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