Numbers 25

No. 25 1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the 2 daughters of Moab: for they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the 3 people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: 4 and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, Take 5 all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up unto the LORD before the sun, that the fierce 6 anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay 7 ye every one his men that have joined themselves unto Baal-peor. And, behold, one of the 8 children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of 9 Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weep- 10 ing at the door of the tent of meeting. And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of 11 Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in 12 his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them 13 through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from 14 the children of Israel. And those that died by the plague were twenty and four thousand. 15 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the 16 priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with 17 my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. 18 Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and it shall be unto him, and 19 to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for 20 his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel. Now the name of the man of Israel 21 that was slain, who was slain with the Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a 22 prince of a fathers’ house among the Simeonites. And the name of the Midianitish woman 23 that was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was head of the people of a fathers’ house 24 in Midian. 25 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Vex the Midianites, and smite them: for they vex 26 you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the mat- 27 ter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain on the day of 28 the plague in the matter of Peor. 31 1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avege the children of Israel of the Midian- 29 ites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. And Moses spake unto the people, 30 saying, Arm ye men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian, to execute 31 the LORD’s vengeance on Midian. Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of 32 Israel, shall ye send to the war. So there were delivered, out of the thousands of Israel, a 33 thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. And Moses sent them, a thousand 34 of every tribe, to the war, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with

7 the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. And they warred 8 against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew every male. And they slew the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain; Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and 9 Reba, the five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. And the children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their 10 cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, they took for a prey. And all their cities in 11 the places wherein they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burnt with fire. And they 12 took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of man and of beast. And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and unto Eleazar the priest, and unto the congrega- tion of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan at Jericho. 13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to 14 meet them without the camp. And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, the cap- tains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, which came from the service of the war. 15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the 16 children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the 17 matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying 18 with him. But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

[Verses 19-24. Instructions to purify themselves, their garments, and their useful booty.]

25. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of 26 man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the heads of the fathers houses of the 27 congregation: and divide the prey into two parts; between the men skilled in war, that went 28 out to battle, and all the congregation: and levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men of war that went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and 29 of the asses, and of the flocks: take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for the 30 LORD’s heave offering. And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one drawn out of every fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, even of all the cattle, 31 and give them unto the Levites, which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD. And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses. 48 And the officers which were over the thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and 49 the captains of hundreds, came near unto Moses: and they said unto Moses, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh not one 50 man of us. And we have brought the LORD’s oblation, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, ankle chains, and bracelets, signet-rings, earrings, and armlets, to make atonement 51 for our souls before the LORD. And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of them, even 52 all wrought jewels. And all the gold of the heave offering that they offered up to the LORD, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven 53 hundred and fifty shekels. (For the men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.) 54 And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

We have here the record of an idolatrous defection on the part of a new generation of Israelites, the children of the men who had fallen in the wilderness, on the eve of entrance into the promised land. They joined themselves unto Baal-peor, the god of the Moabites, for which the displeasure of the true God, jealous of his honor, broke loose upon them. T. C.

1. Shittim. The last station of the wilder- ness, called afterward Abel-Shittim (the afflic- tion of Shittim), after the punishment which followed there. It lay in the plains opposite Jericho. Here the people remained a long time, and received the second giving of the Law.

Gerl.—And now at the very last station of their long march, with the land of promise in full view before them across the Jordan, the people of God—at least a large number of them —give way to temptation. That Balaam was the instigator of this plot we know from subse- quent Scriptures, among others from Rev. 2:14: “I have a few things against thee be- cause thou hast there them that hold the doc- trine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.” S. R.—He was hankering after the rewards that Balak offered; and he could not bear to give them up. And so although he would never curse God’s people, since he was told that he must not, he did the very wickedest thing recorded in the Old Testament; he deliberately told the Moabites how they could seduce God’s people into sin. Temple.—As if in defiance, he counselled the evil stratagem by which he hoped to compass indirectly that ruin of God’s people which he had been withheld from working otherwise. He thus, like Judas and Ahithophel, set in motion a train of events which involved his own destruction. Espin.

The infernal sagacity of Balaam led him to conclude that if they could be seduced from their allegiance to their Divine king, the protection which rendered them invincible would be withdrawn, and they easily be subdued by their enemies. This discovery he made known to the King of Moab before his departure; and it illustrates the character of the man that he could form this device and counsel the king to act upon it, just after his mouth had poured forth—even by constraint—eloquent blessings upon the people whose ruin he now devises. And all this was purely gratuitous; for his business with Moab was ended. He could not curse Israel—and had incurred the anger rather than the honors of the King of Moab. He seems to have retired among the neighboring people of Midian, close allies with Moab, until he should behold the results of the course he had suggested, and in which he seems to have induced the Midianites also to co-operate. These people, however dissatisfied with the result of their sending for him, were still too deeply impressed with the notion of his superhuman sagacity not to pay the most heedful attention to his advice. This was, in effect, that the women should be rendered instrumental in seducing the Israelites to take part in the obscene rites of Baal-Peor. Kit.

He instructs Balak to make a great feast; and, by collecting all the youth and beauty of Moab at this carnival, he allures the people first to fornication, and then, through the medium of their passions, to idolatry; he thus finds a way to rob them of all those privileges which he had so sublimely sung. Such is the darkening, hardening influence of an evil passion cherished within; so wonderfully it glosses over evil and confounds it with good. None knew so well as Balaam that whoso touched the people of God, touched the apple of his eye; yet all was lost in the love of filthy lucre; he was maddened by avarice. R. Hull.

Rather than lose his hopes, Balaam resolves to speak worse than curses. The fear of God’s judgments in a worldly heart is at length overcome with the love of gain. He would not curse, but he would advise, and his counsel is worse than a curse; for his curse had hurt none but himself, his counsel cost the blood of twenty-four thousand Israelites. Where Balaam did speak well, there was never any prophet spake more divinely; where he spake ill, there was never any devil spake more wickedly. How justly did he perish with the sword of Israel, whose tongue had insensibly slain so many thousands of them! Bp. H.

Balaam wanted to do what he knew to be contrary to the express mind of God; he had inward checks and restraints which he could not entirely get over. Not daring as a prophet to assist the King of Moab, he considers whether there might not be found some other means of aiding him against that very people whom he was restrained from cursing in words. He could think of no other method than to betray the children of Israel to provoke his wrath, who was their only strength and defence. The temptation which he pitched upon was that concerning which Solomon afterward observed that it had cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men had been slain by it: and of which he himself was a sad example when his wives turned away his heart after other gods. This succeeded; the people sin against God; and thus the prophet’s counsel brought on that destruction which he could not be prevailed upon to assist with the religious ceremony of execration. And surely that impious counsel he gave to Balak against the children of Israel was a greater piece of wickedness than if he had cursed them in words. . . . Yet, strange as it may appear, such a character is not an uncommon one; nay, with some small alterations and put a little lower, it is applicable to a considerable part of the world. For if the reasonable choice be seen and acknowledged, and yet men make the unreasonable one, is not this the same contradiction and inconsistency which, in Balaam, appear so unaccountable? Bp. Butler.

1. God secured the people against their enemies, while they brought destruction on themselves by their wickedness. Bp. Wilson.—2. The people did eat. Of the Moabitish sacrifices. This was an act of idolatry, whereby they owned themselves the servants of the gods of Moab; as to eat of the Lord’s sacrifices was an act of Divine worship (see Ex. 34:15). Bp. Patrick.

Closely connected with an irrevocable condemnation of every form of idolatry was the special character of the legislation that dealt with the seven nations or tribes inhabiting Palestine at the time of the exodus, and with those people who dwelt on its borders, allies in blood to the Israelites, as being the descendants of the father of Abraham in two cases, and of Isaac himself in the third—namely, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites. Whether the chief danger of being seduced to join in the worship of these people lay in the vicinity of their dwelling places, or in the sympathy of kindred blood, it was warded off by the most inflexible barriers. Against the seductive influences of the neighboring idolaters the door was thus altogether closed, so long as the Law of God was obeyed. For the Law was not a mere idle threat; it was a rule of life, to be enforced by the sword, the stake, the cord, and the stone, for wilful breach; by stripes and by the pecuniary mulct of the sin-offering for inadvertent trespass. It is only within the past few years that this tone and temper of the Pentateuch have been made clearly intelligible, by the discovery of what the gods of Ammon and of Moab actually were. From the time when Israel abode in Shittim, the rites of the service of Baal-Peor have been of a directly licentious character; and the idols before which they were performed are of a type and nature which modesty forbids us to delineate, or more distinctly to describe. F. R. Conder.

The uncleanness committed was a part of the worship and service performed to Baal-Peor. Those that have broken the fences of modesty will never be held by the bonds of piety: and those that have dishonored themselves by fleshly lusts will not scruple to dishonor God by idolatrous worship; for this they are justly given up yet further to vile affections. H.

4,5. Kennicott remarks that the Samaritan and Hebrew texts must be both taken together, to make the sense here complete. And the Lord said unto Moses, SPEAK unto all the heads of the people; AND LET THEM SLAY THE MEN THAT WERE JOINED TO BAAL-PEOR; and hang them up before the Lord, against the sun. A. C.—The pronoun “them” refers not to the heads of the people, but to the transgressors, whom the chiefs were to stone, and then hang up as a terror to those evil doers. For Moses said to the judges, “Slay ye every one his men that were joined to Baal-Peor.” Hanging alive was not a Jewish mode of execution, but stoning. The victim was first stoned to death and then hung up, in some cases, as a special mark of the Divine malediction. Hence the axiom (De. 21:23), “He that is hanged is accursed of God”—that is, the being thus hung up is a sign of his being accursed. S. R.

6. Midianitish woman. It appears that she was the daughter of Zur, who was a “head over a people, and of a chief house in Midian,” and is mentioned (31:8) as one of the five kings of Midian that afterward perished by the hands of the Israelites. Her high rank proves that Zimri had not fallen in with her by mere chance, but had been deliberately singled out by the Midianites as one whom they must at any price lead astray. The example of Zimri is doubtless recorded as one of the most memorable and characteristic in itself, as well as because it gave the impulse to the act of Phinehas. Espin.

6-15. Here is a remarkable contest between wickedness and righteousness, which shall be most bold and resolute; and righteousness carries the day, as no doubt it will at last. Never was vice more daring than it was in Zimri; a prince of a chief house in the tribe of Simeon. All the circumstances concurred to make it exceeding sinful, exceeding shameful. It was an affront to the justice of the nation, and bid defiance to that. It was an affront to the religion of the nation, and put a contempt upon that. Moses and the main body of the congregation who kept their integrity were weeping at the door of the tabernacle; lamenting the sin committed and deprecating the plague begun; they were sanctifying a fast in a solemn assembly, weeping between the porch and the altar, to turn away the wrath of God from the congregation; then comes Zimri among them, in effect to tell them that he was resolved to fill the measure of sin, as fast as they emptied it. And never was virtue more daring than it was in Phinehas. H.

The act of Phinehas was its own justification. Its merit consisted in the evidence it gave that his heart was right before God. He was, to quote the text of verse 11, “zealous with God’s zeal,” and abhorred the presumptuous wickedness of Zimri as God abhorred it. He therefore risked his own life by dealing according to their deserts with two influential and defiant evildoers; and his act, done in the face of Moses and the people and for them, was accepted by God as a national atonement. How thoroughly the nation adopted the deed is manifest by the conspicuous position from henceforth assigned to Phinehas, and by the fame which attached to him and it ever afterward. Espin.—The zeal of God hath barred out all weak deliberations; and Phinehas holds it now both his duty and his glory to be an executioner of so shameless a pair of offenders. God loves this heat of zeal in all the carriages of his servants; and if it transport us too far he pardoneth the errors of our fervency, rather than the indifferences of lukewarmness. As these two were more beasts than any that ever he sacrificed, so the shedding of their blood was the acceptablest sacrifice that ever he offered unto God; for both all Israel is freed from the plague, and all his posterity have the priesthood entailed to them so long as the Jews were a people. Bp. H.

8. So the plague was stayed. The plague was the execution which Moses and the chiefs of the people were carrying on till twenty-four thousand had been executed. S. R.

13. The promise to Phinehas imports no more than that he and his seed should thenceforward have the honor to be the representatives of that everlasting priesthood, which primarily, and by an eternal covenant, was vested in the Messiah: hence God calls it here his covenant of peace. It proved literally true that Phinehas and his seed should hold that typical and ceremonial priesthood as long as it was to last, and be the representatives of the everlasting priesthood of Christ, until his coming. Wogan. —The Jews reckon twelve high-priests of the race of Phinehas, from this time to the days of Solomon—nine more from that time to the captivity, and fifteen from their return, to the time of Antiochus Espator, the last of whom was Onias, slain by Lysias. Ezra, the great priest and scribe, was of this line (7:1, 5). The family of Ithamar, uncle of Phinehas, had the priesthood for about one hundred and fifty years; but it was restored to the family of Phinehas in the person of Zadok the priest (1 Ch. 6:50), in which it continued, in the whole about nine hundred and fifty years. God therefore sufficiently fulfilled his promise. A. C.

17. The mischief which the Midianites did to Israel must be remembered and punished with as much severity as that which the Amalekites did in fighting with them when they came out of Egypt. God will certainly reckon with those that do the devil’s work in tempting men to sin. H.

DESTRUCTION OF THE MIDIANITES (Nu. 31:1-54).

Of the two nations who had shown themselves hostile toward the Israelites—the Moabites and Midianites—revenge is now taken on the latter. The reason why the first were spared, seems to be because the Midianites had taken the lead in the crime of seducing Israel to the practice of the licentious idolatry, and Balaam, the instigator to the act, was found among them and killed. The sin in Israel had been stemmed by the act of Phinehas: so had judgment begun at the house of God; but now likewise must the purified people of God take vengeance on his enemies. The conduct of the people in the war, the division of the spoil, as well as their wonderful preservation, are related with particular detail, since this battle was to serve as a kind of example for the war of conquest which was now immediately before them. Geri.

For these plots against Israel, as well as for their former inhospitality, the Moabites were excluded from the congregation to the tenth generation; and the Midianites were doomed to destruction. The execution of this sentence was the last act of the government of Moses. All the men of Midian were slain, with the princes who had been allied with Balak, and Balaam died in the general slaughter. Their cities were burned and their spoil taken, and the women, who had been saved alive, were slain by the command of Moses, the female children only being spared. At the same time a law was made for the equitable division of the spoil between those who went forth to battle and those who remained in the camp. P. S.—That this account of the attack and extermination of the Midianites has reference to the Midianitish tribes upon the table-land of Moab, the chiefs of which are spoken of in Josh. 13:21 as having been formerly the vassals of Sihon, is placed beyond all doubt by the express statement to that effect in verse 8. The main body of the Midianites does not appear to have taken part at all, and therefore there is nothing surprising in their subsequent hostile and powerful attacks upon the Israelites. Moreover, the fact that only twelve thousand Israelites (a thousand from every tribe) were engaged in the battle, is a proof that the foe was neither numerous nor strong. K.

2,3. God said, Avenge Israel, Moses says, Avenge the Lord; for the interests of God and Israel are united, and the cause of both is one and the same. And if God in what he does shows himself jealous for the honor of Israel, surely Israel in what they do ought to show themselves jealous for the glory of God. Then only we can justify the avenging of ourselves when it is the vengeance of the Lord that we engage in. Nay, for this reason we are forbidden to avenge ourselves, because God has said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. H.

The very words in which the command is given show that the war against the Midianites was no ordinary one. It was indeed less a war than the execution of a Divine sentence against a most guilty people. The Midianites had corrupted and, so far as in them lay, ruined God’s people, body and soul; and had done this knowing, as after the overruling by God of Balaam’s attempts to curse Israel they must have known, that in doing it they were openly rebelling against God. From God then a no less open retribution overtakes them. The employment in this work of so small a number of Israelites as twelve thousand (verse 4); the selection of an equal number from each tribe irrespective of its warlike strength; the appointment of Phinehas, famous for his zeal against the very sin to which the Midianites had tempted Israel, to take the lead in the war with “the holy instruments and trumpets” (verse 6); and the extraordinary preservation (verse 49) of all those engaged; are tokens that on this occasion, no less than when the cities of the plain were destroyed by fire from heaven, the hand of God directed the stroke. The Israelites had no discretion to kill or to spare. They were bidden to exterminate without mercy, and brought back to their task (verse 14) when they showed signs of flinching from it. It was a preparation for other duties of the like kind which awaited them; a proof by experiment that they had no alternative in such matters except to fulfil the commands of God; an awful but doubtless salutary manifestation, as was afterward the slaughter of the Canaanites, to which that of Midian is in all essential respects similar, of God’s wrath against sin; and a type of the future extermination of sin and sinners from his kingdom. Espin.

8. Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of King Pharaoh, that he might be true to Israel; Balaam, a man of the same time, but of a base selfishness of heart, went to Moab to seek King Balak’s favor and rewards by cursing those whom God had blessed. By enchantments he prevailed nothing against Israel, and was compelled to bless them in glowing strains. But by vile and crafty counsel he did succeed in partially ensnaring them. So the chosen nation was defiled and was smitten of God for the sin. But Israel was soon restored, and under Phinehas the priest attacked and almost exterminated the wicked Midianites. “Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword.” No death of the righteous could be for a man that loved the wages of unrighteousness. He had prophesied as one who enjoyed the “vision of the Almighty.” Yet he died as a fool dieth, and has left a shameful memory. D. F.—Had he himself believed what he said of the happy state of Israel, he would not have herded himself thus with the enemies of Israel, but justly does he die the death of the wicked (though he pretended to desire that of the righteous), and go down slain to the pit with the uncircumcised, who rebelled thus against the convictions of his own conscience. The Midianites’ wiles were Balaam’s projects, it was therefore just that he should perish with them (Hos. 4:5). Now was his folly made manifest to all men, who foretold the fate of others, but foresaw not his own. H.

The beginning of the way of Balaam was loving the wages of unrighteousness; the middle of it was the seeking of them, combined with an ever-weakening attempt to keep the path of righteousness while seeking the other wages; and now what is the end? “The wages of sin;” which is death. From the double-mindedness of the middle stage he very rapidly passed into whole-hearted wickedness, and after doing the devil’s work with a singleness of purpose he had never shown before, at last “utterly perished in his own corruption.” One of his wonderful sayings had been: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” These, and such as these, were his words; that was the end of his way. J. M. G.

Not with the righteous, but fighting among the enemies of God; not on a peaceful death-bed, but in the red front of guilty strife: so, on the blood-stained turf, amid the routed ranks, by the pitiless sword of men whom he had tempted to their ruin; so, after a wasted life, his plots frustrated, his curses foiled, died one who, if he had been true to his convictions, might have been almost as great as Moses’ self; and the thick pall of utter darkness rushes down upon his end. And if we look down the dark and slippery steps of his degradation, we can trace them through temptation faintly resisted to temptation yielded to, and remorse stifled, and warnings resisted, and penal blindness inflicted, and sin willingly chosen, and sin let alone, until the seer of the vision of the Almighty becomes the tempter to the infamies of Baal-Peor. But the very central lesson of his career is the power of a besetting sin. Farrar.

Two hostile kingdoms forever confront each other in this world. The strong one armed keepeth his own palace. He will never surrender it, or one particle of it, in any human soul, till a stronger than he—and there is only one stronger—binds him. He will seem to surrender it; he will call it by some innocent name; he will cover it with a Christian title; he will deceive, flatter, promise, and manage; he will transform himself into an angel of light; but he will do it all to keep his own. Equally exclusive, over against that dark kingdom, is the kingdom of light: open, candid, without concealment or evasion, rejoicing in the truth, all its deeds done in the day, but admitting no admixture, no compromise, no neutrality. Everywhere, what fellowship hath light with darkness? Anywhere, what part hath the true subject with the traitor? In every soul, these two kingdoms and their laws are contrary the one to the other. It is remarkable, in all the Gospel, how invariable and how clear Christ makes this doctrine of absolute and necessary separation. There is no third party after all. There is no place for one. Non-profession does not make non-allegiance, or neutrality. It makes allegiance to the enemy. It makes disloyalty. “He that is not with me is against me.” There is a striking record of a prophet who tried in perilous days to be on neither side, and paltered with a double tongue between the true God and his enemies; but at last the issue between the two armies could be no longer evaded, and after the battle the body of this compromising neutral, Balaam, was found on the enemy’s side, where it fell fighting against the Lord. F. D. H.

9-24. In this war against the Midianites, which was to be to a certain extent the pattern of the subsequent wars of extermination in Canaan, all cattle, with all kinds of property and substance, were destroyed, the whole spoil brought before Moses and the high-priest, and only the female sex spared. The rest of the booty was sanctified and purged—metal articles being passed through the fire, and wearing apparel through water. C. G. B.

15-18. It was the women more than the men of Midian of whom they had just reason to be afraid. In justice to the men, in fairness to the wives of Israel, it was simply impossible to let them loose upon the camp. Again, to suffer a generation of Midianites to grow up under the roofs of Israel would have been madness and worse, for it would have been to court a great and perhaps fatal national disaster. For the sake of Israel the captive women and children must be got rid of, and this could only be done either by slaughtering the women and boys, or by taking them back to their desolated homes to perish of hunger and disease. Of the two courses Moses certainly chose the more merciful. The nation was exterminated, as God had commanded; the girls only were spared because they were harmless then, and likely to remain harmless; distributed through the households of Israel, without parents or brothers to keep alive the national sentiment, they would rapidly be absorbed in the people of the Lord. R. W.

25-47. The distribution of the spoils. Those who had gone to the war had gone as representatives of the whole of Israel, hence it was for the whole of Israel to share in the spoil. While part was away, avenging the Lord of Midian, another part stayed at home, also serving God by looking after the interests of those who were absent. Young.—The booty brought home by the conquerors was extraordinarily rich, especially in cattle; from which we may infer that the rearing of cattle was the occupation of the tribe. For the Israelites such booty as this must have been doubly valuable. There was something very peculiar in the manner in which Moses and Eleazar distributed the booty. The whole of it, consisting of 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, 61,000 asses, and 32,000 persons, was divided into two equal parts, one of which was allotted to the victors, the other to those who had taken no part in the battle. As the 12,000 men who were selected to fight did not go to war on their own responsibility, but as representatives of the whole congregation, it was but right that the whole congregation should share in the booty; but as the 12,000 had had all the trouble and fatigue, it was just as proper that they should receive an incomparably larger share. And since the war was also a war of Jehovah, whose presence and aid had given the victory to the Israelites, and therefore the booty, strictly speaking, belonged to Jehovah, a certain quota was to be allotted to the priests and Levites as his servants and representatives. The priests were to receive two parts in a thousand from the share of the warriors; the Levites, two in a hundred from that of the congregation. K.

28-30. The soldiers were ordered out of their half to deduct a five hundredth part of every kind of spoil, as an offering to God, in acknowledgment of him as the sovereign owner of all and the author of their success. This was to be presented to the priests. In like manner, out of the half belonging to the people, who had borne no fatigue in the war, a much larger proportion was to be deducted out of each article of spoil—namely, a fiftieth part, to be presented to the Levites, the other branch of God’s ministry. Pyle.

49. There lacketh not one man of us. The Israelitish army consisted of but 12,000 men, a mere handful when opposed to the people of Midian. Yet when the officers made a muster of their troops after their return from the war, they found they had not lost a single man! This struck them as so decisive an evidence of God’s interposition that out of the spoils they had taken they offered “an oblation to the Lord, an atonement for their souls.” Bp. Watson.

This oblation the captains offered to make an atonement for their souls (verse 50). Instead of coming to Moses to demand a recompense for the good service they had done in acenging the Lord of Midian, they bring an oblation to make atonement for their souls, being conscious to themselves, as the best men must be even in their best services, that they had been defective in their duty not only in that instance for which they were reproved (verse 14), but in many others. Moses accepted it and laid it up in the tabernacle as a memorial for the children of Israel (verse 54)—that is, a monument of God’s goodness to them, that they might be encouraged to trust in him in their further wars; and a monument of their gratitude to God, that he, being well pleased with this thankful acknowledgment of favors bestowed, might continue and repeat his mercies to them. H.

THIRD NUMBERING OF ISRAEL. LAND EAST OF JORDAN DIVIDED BETWEEN REUBEN, GAD, AND HALF MANASSEH. BOUNDARIES OF THE LAND OF CANAAN. DIVISION BY LOT AMONG NINE AND A HALF REMAINING TRIBES.