Numbers 31:1-16: a reflection

1The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Avenge the children of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” 3Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for war, that they may go against Midian, to execute the LORD’s vengeance on Midian. 4You shall send one thousand out of every tribe, throughout all the tribes of Israel, to the war.” 5So there were delivered, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6Moses sent them, one thousand of every tribe, to the war with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. 7They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses. They killed every male. 8They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. 9The children of Israel took the women of Midian captive with their little ones; and all their livestock, all their flocks, and all their goods, they took as plunder. 10All their cities in the places in which they lived, and all their encampments, they burned with fire. 11They took all the captives, and all the plunder, both of man and of animal. 12They brought the captives with the prey and the plunder, to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan at Jericho. 13Moses and Eleazar the priest, with all the princes of the congregation, went out to meet them outside of the camp. 14Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who came from the service of the war. 15Moses said to them, “Have you saved all the women alive? 16Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD.

This is one of the passages many readers would rather skip, and it is honest to say so. A war of vengeance on Midian, every male killed, the towns burned, and Moses angry that any were spared. It is hard, and sitting with it should not be made easy or comfortable. Scripture records the violence of its own history without hiding it, and we need not pretend it away.

One thread worth following is the name that surfaces in the middle: Balaam. He is the reason given, the one whose counsel had lured Israel into idolatry at Peor, where a plague swept the camp. The passage treats what corrupts God's people not as a small thing but as a matter of life and death. Whatever we make of the war, the seriousness is a warning: the things that draw us away from God are not harmless, however pleasant they seem going in.

And it is right to bring the hard questions here to God rather than to bury them. If a passage like this troubles you, that trouble is not a lack of faith; it can be part of an honest faith, one that refuses easy answers and takes its unease to the Lord. Do not force a tidy lesson from a difficult text. Sit with it, let it sober you about sin, and tell God plainly what you cannot resolve.

Lord, some of your Scripture is hard, and I do not understand all of it. Keep me from treating sin lightly, and let me bring my honest questions to you rather than turning away.