Reading: Numbers 31-32, Psalm 50
Well, this is uncomfortable. We’ve run into one of the difficult to accept events in the story: God mandated total war. The story itself isn’t too hard to understand. The Israelites go out to seek vengeance on the people of Midian because of the events of a couple of days ago. Midian had threatened Israel not through open warfare, but by undermining their worship of the God of Israel by means of religious prostitutes. In many ways this is worse than open war, and Israel is going to respond appropriately.
No, what raises ethical issues is the extent of the Israelite victory: the total destruction of the Midian culture and the eradication of their people. Today we would call this genocide. How can we accept this as part of the story? And even worse, an event that happens at God’s direction. As usual, in order to get our heads around what it happening here, we need to get out of the 21st century for a moment, and think about what the story is telling us about Israel and the God of Israel in a particular point in history.
Israel, as the story has been going way out of it’s way to remind us over and over, is to be different from the nations around it. God chose the descendants of Abraham to bring about his plan for a new creation. He is not interested in doing a “reset button” kind of new creation again- we had that once in Genesis, and it turns out the problem isn’t culture, social structure, or nature. The problem is a human problem. It isn’t the human situation, it’s the human heart. God is working out a plan to create a new kind of human through the people of Israel. It is important that they remain apart, distinct, separate. Midian threatened this in the worst way: they used sexual temptations to draw Israel into the worship of their gods. God’s plan is generational- he is using a family to work out his plan. Midian, and Moab, threatened that by luring Israel out of their family. They were planning to destroy Israel by shattering their family.
God is having none of it. His direction is to eradicate Midian. They represent an existential threat to Israel, and God will have them removed. Here again I want to bring up that God’s decisions are not up for judgment- in this story, humans do not have the standing to challenge God’s choices. His choices are the definition of correct, but they cannot be applied outside of their context. That God chose to eradicate the people of Midian was correct, but it does not follow that any human can make a similar choice, because none of us have similar standing. This is worth restating because there will be a great deal of these sorts of commands coming from God, and there have been not a few humans who have used these to justify their own destructive decisions. Humans are not in the same category as God, and we cannot use his choices to justify our own.
Okay, back to the story itself. The Israelites send 12,000 men out to smite Midian, representing the twelve tribes, and led by the high priest Eleazar’s son Phinehas. They thrash Midian, and capture a whole bunch of cattle and people without losing a single man. Feeling good about themselves, they return to the main camp, and Moses gets mad at them. They didn’t carry out all God’s instructions, and took a whole bunch of women captive- the same women who were leading them into the worship of foreign gods- instead of wiping everyone out. Moses has them correct their mistake. Again, this is an example of how God’s choices are right, people’s are not. Israel does not get to edit the commands of God for their own perceived benefit.
Following the completion of God’s command to destroy the people of Midian, God gives some interesting commands about how to deal with plunder. The people who went out and fought the battle only receive half the plunder. They must share it with those who remained behind, and give a portion to the Levites. What is the deal? They fought, you’d think they get the plunder. But God is making a point here about who the victory belongs to. Israel’s army is not to claim credit for their victories- God is claiming responsibility for it, and making the soldiers share the plunder will prevent the stratification of Israelite society. All the people will share in the blessings of God, not just those who went out to fight. There is also a large amount of ceremonial purification that must happen to both the plunder and the men who went out to fight. They are all tainted with death, and to rejoin the community of Israel they have to be purified.
The rest of today’s story has to do with the Reubenites, Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. These tribes ask that they be allowed to settle outside the borders of the promised land. Moses is at first upset at them for trying to get out of fighting with the rest of the nation in the land of Canaan. These tribes say they will not only fight, they will go first over the river and into battle, so long as their families can remain behind and establish their homes. Moses allows for this, provided they actually come through with their promise to fight with the rest of the nation.