Read Numbers 31:1–24
Questions from the Scripture text: Who spoke to whom (Numbers 31:1)? What did He tell him to take (Numbers 31:2)? Upon whom? For whom? Then what will happen? Who spoke to whom in Numbers 31:3? What did he tell them to do to themselves? In order to take what? For Whom? Upon whom? How many does he say to send from each tribe (Numbers 31:4)? What was the result (Numbers 31:5)? Who sent these 12,000 to war (Numbers 31:6)? With what else with them? What did they do (Numbers 31:7)? In exact accordance with what? Whom did they kill? Especially which five men (Numbers 31:8)? And especially which man? Whom did they take as captive (Numbers 31:9)? What did they take as spoil? What did they do to the cities (Numbers 31:10)? And to what else? What does Numbers 31:11 repeat? To whom do they bring what in Numbers 31:12? Where? Across from where? Who mee them, where (Numbers 31:13)? How does Moses respond with regard to whom (Numbers 31:14)? Why (Numbers 31:15)? What the women done (Numbers 31:16)? Who had counseled this? Against Whom? With what result? Whom does he say to execute (Numbers 31:17)? And whom to keep alive (Numbers 31:18)? Who else must do what, for how long (Numbers 31:19)? Why? What else must be purified (Numbers 31:20)? Who, then, speaks to whom in Numbers 31:21? Whose ordinance does he give them? To whom was it originally commanded? What items of the unclean must be cleansed in what ways (Numbers 31:22-24)?
What is required against all sin? Numbers 31:1–24 looks forward to the evening sermon on the coming Lord’s Day. In these twenty-four verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that God’s vengeance is required against all sin.
When the Midianites had turned the Israelites against the Lord in harlotry and idolatry, the Lord had commanded them to attack and strike them (cf. Numbers 25:17–18). Now, it is the one loose end left in Moses’s life’s work (Numbers 31:2, cf. Numbers 27:13). God’s justice may come slowly, but it surely comes. The Lord does this both for His people’s sake (Numbers 31:2) and for His own holiness’s sake (Numbers 31:3). So shall it be with His judgment in the last day.
It is interesting that the number of men required is one thousand from each tribe (Numbers 31:4-5). First, this number seems small on the whole. But in a war of the Lord’s vengeance, it is not the size of the contingent that determines the outcome. Second, this number is a greater proportion of some tribes than of others. This has been a book of numbers, and the largest tribes were more than double the size of the smallest. This is a covenantal sharing of vengeance. The representation is not according to census, but identification as the people of God; no tribe will be more identified as such than the other.
The fact that this is a “holy war” is indicated by the accompaniment of the high priest and the tabernacle furnishings (Numbers 31:6). This is not a superstitious use, like that which will cause Israel to be chastened in 1 Samuel 4. In this case, it is a recognition that the Lord Himself has commanded this action—and that, although He has required their participation, it will be the Lord Himself that completes this action.
The people execute the soldiers (Numbers 31:7), the kings (Numbers 31:8), and even Balaam, whose counsel had led to this dreadful condition. But they stop short at the women (Numbers 31:9). It seems that the people do not understand the judicial nature of the military action that God has commanded. Or, worse, they don’t care. After all, it was desire for these women that had caused them to stumble in the first place. By lumping the women in with the spoil, the implication seems to be that they wished to be able to have the women for themselves to marry (or, worse, otherwise enjoy). So Moses is furious (Numbers 31:15), because the women were Balaam’s chief agents in turning Israel against the Lord, in order to obtain the reward from Balak (Numbers 31:16, cf. chapters 22–25).
There is much ritual purification that must take place (Numbers 31:19-20), but repentance (moral purity) must proceed religious rites (ceremonial purity). They must first repent of the failure to carry out the Lord’s vengeance (Numbers 31:3). If we understand the punishment on the adulteresses who ensnared Israel by harlotry, but balk at the instruction concerning the male children (Numbers 31:17), that is because we are a generation that does not think covenantally. There must be no household in Israel that arises from the sin of Peor, and each male child among them presents just such a possibility. This is the repentance. The ritual purification is according to God’s law from chapter 19 and Leviticus 11.
The repentance and ritual purification are important for remembering that the offense that we take to such a passage is not due to modern sensibilities or genuine love. Rather, it is because we do not understand the greatness of the holiness of God. If we take His holiness and our sinfulness into account, the shock of the passage is not the execution of Midianite women and boys. Rather, the shock of the passage is that the sinful, Israelite men may be ritually purified instead of summarily executed. Of course, this is not something that has actual atoning effect. It is faith in the promised Christ—indeed, it is the promised Christ Himself—that accomplishes this miracle of God’s-holiness-defiling, and God’s-vengeance-deserving, sinners being granted repentance (cf. Acts 11:18) and holiness (cf. Revelation 5:9–10)!
When you have difficulty with the truth about God’s wrath, what must you remember about God? What must you remember about men, generally? How must you take this to heart, regarding your own desserts, personally? How must you take this to heart, regarding your own salvation? How should you respond to God? What should you pray for others and do for others?
Sample prayer: Lord, we thank You for Your mercy to us. For, we have deserved the full outpouring of Your hot wrath. But, You have expended that wrath upon Your Son for those whom You are saving. Forgive us from shrinking from this true doctrine of Your holiness and the wrath that it requires and expresses. Grant that we might not only affirm Your wrath, but that by doing so, we might rejoice all the more over Your redemption in Christ, through Whom we ask it, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP45B “Daughter, Incline Your Ear” or TPH128B “Blest the Man Who Fears Jehovah”
