Numbers 31:16

_AND MOSES SAID UNTO THEM, HAVE YE SAVED ALL THE WOMEN ALIVE?_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

13-18 The sword of war should spare women and children; but the sword of justice should know no distinction, but that of guilty or not guilty. This war was the execution of a righteous sentence upon a guilty nation, in which the women were the worst criminals. The female children were spared, who, being brought up among the Israelites, would not tempt them to idolatry. The whole history shows the hatefulness of sin, and the guilt of tempting others; it teaches us to avoid all occasions of evil, and to give no quarter to inward lusts. The women and children were not kept for sinful purposes, but for slaves, a custom every where practised in former times, as to captives. In the course of providence, when famine and plagues visit a nation for sin, children suffer in the common calamity. In this case parents are punished in their children; and for children dying before actual sin, full provi...

CAUSED ... TO COMMIT TRESPASS - More literally, “became to the children of Israel for a cause (or, incitement) of treachery to the Lord.”...

BEHOLD, THESE CAUSED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, THROUGH THE COUNSEL OF BALAAM,.... Who advised the Midianites to send their women into the camp of Israel, and allure them to uncleanness, and so draw them into idolatry, which counsel they followed and it succeeded; for, by this means, they were brought TO COMMIT TRESPASS AGAINST THE LORD IN THE MATTER OF PEOR; by worshipping Baalpeor, the god of the Moabites and Midianites; whereby they transgressed the commandment of God, which forbid them having and worshipping any other gods besides him, and is a sin highly offensive to him, being greatly derogatory to his honour and glory: AND THERE WAS A PLAGUE AMONG THE CONGREGATION OF THE LORD; for that sin; and in that plague died 24,000 persons, Numbers 25:9....

7. THE WAR AGAINST THE MIDIANITES CHAPTER 31 _ 1. The command to fight Midian (Numbers 31:1)_ 2. The war (Numbers 31:7) 3. The cleansing (Numbers 31:13) 4. The spoil taken (Numbers 31:25) 5. The oblation of the officers (Numbers 31:48) War is commanded next by the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, “Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites; afterward shalt thou be gathered to thy people.” This is, therefore, the last thing in the official life of Moses. This war against Midian had been com

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE MIDIANITES. This story of a war of extermination, waged to avenge the wiles practised on Israel by Midian (as described in Numbers 25:6) is marked by various fanciful elements, such as (_a)_ the huge number massacred (for if the girls and unmarried women amounted to 32,000, the married women and the males of all ages must have been three times as many); (_b)_ the vast quantity of spoil taken; (_c_) the complete immunity of the Israelite force from all loss of life. If any war with Midian occurred at this time, it certainly did not result in the extermination of the people, who were a powerful tribe in the period of the Judges (Judges 6). The real object of the story (whether it has any basis in fact or not) is to illustrate by means of an ostensibly historical occurrence the laws relating to purification, and the division of booty taken in war....

THESE. Compare Numbers 25:2. COUNSEL. word, or doctrine (Revelation 2:14). TRESPASS. Hebrew. _ma'al._ Compare App-44....

_The utter destruction of every Midianite_, with the exception of the virgins who are to be kept as spoil....

THROUGH THE COUNSEL OF BALAAM— We have, in the course of the former Chapter s, spoken of this evil _counsel._ As the Moabites and Midianites, strongly infected with the ideas of local and tutelary gods, conceived Jehovah to be only the tutelary God of the Jews; we may well account, from this persuasion, for their proceedings, and for their rather choosing to entice the Israelites to their idolatry, than to embrace with them the worship of Jehovah....

B. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THEIR DISPOSAL vv. 13-20 TEXT Numbers 31:13. And Moses and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp. 14. And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. 15. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16. Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the Counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. 17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. 19. And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person,