Today we begin Numbers Chapter 31.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here.
For the King James version, click here.
Numbers Chapter 31 is all about the holy war between Israel and Midian.
When I say “holy war”, by definition I mean a war initiated per the orders of the God of Israel.
Why did God order Israel to attack Midian?
The answer is simple.
The Midianites had teamed up with Moab in leading the Israelites into full-blown idolatry by getting them to worship the chief god of Moab, CHEMOSH.
Recall the story of Balak and Balaam when Balak, the king of Moab, hired Balaam (the Mesopotamian sorcerer) to put a curse on Israel in the hopes of weakening Israel so he could defeat them in battle.
Well, Numbers 31 is pretty much a continuation of that story.
Why did Moab want to go to war with Israel in the first place?
The answer to that question is also pretty simple.
Israel had a population of about 3 million people and within that population they possessed an army of about 600,000 strong fighting men.
With that many soldiers, Israel was perfectly capable of dominating any other people group in the region, if they so chose.
In addition to being a major threat to the surrounding nations, Israel was also a serious thorn in the rear end of any King who wanted to expand his territory and achieve regional domination, which was pretty much the goal of any king.
That’s why King Balak, being no different than any other king who wished to expand his sphere of influence, attempted to get Balaam to curse Israel.
But it didn’t work.
The Lord intervened and made it clear to Balaam that no sorcery would work against Israel because Israel was a blessed and protected nation and if Balaam even attempted to curse Israel, he could consider himself a dead man.
As a result of this divine intervention, Balaam informed King Balak that he could not curse Israel and had to return back to his home in Carchemish minus a paycheck.
However, Balaam’s devious intentions didn’t end there.
We learn later that since Israel remained in the area of Moab, Balaam advised Balak to weaken Israel by sending the attractive Midianite women into the camp of Israel to sexually tempt them and in due course get them to worship CHEMOSH.
This plan of infiltration worked like a dream.
Due to being enticed by the women of Midian, Israel committed gross idolatry and as a result the Lord sent a plague on Israel which ended up killing a total of 24,000 Israelites.
The plague only stopped when Phinehas speared both an Israelite man and a Moabite woman while they were having sex inside one of the tents within the camp of Israel.
The Lord considered what Phinehas did to be a fair and just atonement which stopped the plague immediately.
This seems to be a common pattern we’ll find throughout the Scriptures.
FIRST, Israel is led into idolatry by some heathen nation.
SECOND, God punishes Israel for committing the idolatry.
THIRD, God takes revenge on those who led Israel to commit idolatry.
It is the third step of the aforementioned pattern that we’re dealing with here in Numbers 31.
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