Chapter 31

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ACTS!

We come today to a part of the Bible that challenges me deeply. Troubles me, in fact. Simply because it seems to be so foreign to the personality of the God I have come to love and worship.

Chapter 31 of Numbers is where Israel gets a little payback from the Midianites.

Now, in context, it is worth mentioning that the Midianites DID hire Balaam to put a curse on the Israelites (and the fact that he ended up being unable to doesn’t change the fact that he did his best). They WERE an enemy of Israel, and they DID try a campaign of seduction to try to get the Israelites to stop their progress. I know that.

I also know that in the ancient world, farming techniques were far from perfect, and war was a way of ensuring that your own people had enough to eat. It wasn’t done for the fun of it. This is why wars were so merciless in this time – it was literally a matter of “them or us”. I know that too.

I even know that God has reasons for doing things that we really can’t understand because we don’t know what God can see that we can’t. I know that as well.

But for all that I still find it hard to reconcile the God that I love with the God who orders the execution of ALL the people in the Midianite towns. Why, Lord? What was so irredeemably evil about the people in these places that they deserved death without prejudice?

It’s also quite horrifying from a modern perspective to see the attitude towards women – the people who are eligible to be spared from death are in fact the women who are eligible for marriage!

God’s blessing is very evidently on this attack, one way or another – the soldiers come back not having lost a man. So there’s something going on here that we may not understand.

As I say, I find this all very hard to cope with.

However, God has a plan. And that plan involves the salvation of an entire world. So maybe this path that God gives is the best option.

Maybe it’s just a matter of God working within the violence of the time. Certainly, God has given these people the Ten Commandments, and all his other laws. We know that after the entry into the promised land this nomadic nation will be forged into a mighty (but good and righteous) country.

But this is simply guess work. Frankly I don’t know what God has in mind.

I do know that I can trust Him. For now, I guess, that’s enough.