War

We're about to enter an interesting period of Israel's history, one where they appear to battle almost every people on the face of the earth, and one that many non-believers point to when making disparaging comments about Christianity. It begins in Numbers 31, where Israel is ordered not only to engage in war against the Midianites, but to completely plunder and destroy it. They were commanded to kill every man, and take every woman and child as plunder. How on earth can a loving God condone such behavior?

I don't claim to be a modern-day theologian or Biblical scholar, but we've gotten some pretty good hints as to what God wanted to accomplish. A couple days ago, we read how the Israelites engaged in worship of Baal with the Moabites, which can lead us to contend that similar behavior would occur with  the Midianites if they were allowed to live. The people of Israel seem to be a people easily pulled away from the worship of God, and by eliminating the Midianites, a potential avenue to the worship of false gods was removed.

In addition, take special notice of the word "vengeance" used in 31:2. Vengeance, properly defined, is the infliction of punishment for a wrong committed, not just wanton violence for one's own reasons. A Midianite woman was the primary cause of what went wrong in Numbers 25, and this is the Lord's redress against a people that were attempting to steal his chosen people. I know many things, and one of them is not to question the Lord's will--I may not agree or understand, but those are my shortcomings, not God's.

The last point I want to stress are the verses describing what the soldiers have to do in order to re-enter the camp. They have to purify not only themselves, but all the plunder, either through fire, water or both. The Lord finds war detestable and unclean, making these procedures necessary. This is why I get uncomfortable when we describe modern-day war as an instrument of the Lord's will. Whether it is or isn't is completely beyond me (and everyone else, by the way), but never think for one second that the Lord takes pleasure in our killing each other. If the Midianites hadn't been Baal-worshiping people who attempted to seduce the Israelites, perhaps they wouldn't have required eradication, but that wasn't the case. The Bible clearly will tell us when the Lord commanded Israel to go to war, but let's leave it at that when we view modern-day war--that's the work of man, and unfortunately will NEVER stop until the Lord returns.

Scott