One of the more vicious passages in The Bible is found in numbers ch. 31. And though many simply choose to ignore it, Apologeticspress.org lays out a defense of it.
First, the passage in question.
13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.
14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them.
16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people.
17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Now Apologeticspress.Org's defense.
However, to allege that the God of the Bible is some sort of “monster” for ordering Israel to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan exhibits an ignorance of biblical teaching. Those inhabitants were destroyed because of their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4; 18:9-14).
Those inhabitants were supposedly destroyed because the Hebrews wanted their lands. If God was worried about their “sin” then why not send in missionaries?
And was God not worried about the “sin” of the other inhabitants of planet Earth. Were the Asians, Europeans, Africans and the peoples scattered throughout the New World Sinless?
This was all about getting that land.
Complaining about Jehovah’s order to destroy innocent children is a vain gesture when one realizes that the children were spared an even worse fate of being reared as slaves under the domination of sin.
I thought we all sinned...
I thought everybody sinned.
Did God send out groups to wipe out all the other sinners in the World then, or just the ones who happened to be where the Hebrews wanted to be?
Instead of having to endure the scourge of a life of immorality and wickedness, these innocents were ushered early into the bliss of Paradise. If the male children had been allowed to mature, they most likely would have followed the pagan ways of their forefathers, and eventually would have taken vengeance on the Israelites. Killing the males not only prevented them from falling into the same abominable sins as their parents, but also kept Israel from having to battle them later.
Wow!
Read that one again.
I guess abortion is just a blessing in disguise then...
The allegation that the Israelite men spared the young girls in order to rape them is nothing but baseless supposition predicated upon a lack of biblical knowledge. In the custom of the time, marriages were conducted at a young age. Therefore, the reference to the young girls who had not “known man by lying with him” would indicate that they were very young, likely under the age of twelve. These girls were too young to be able to lead the men of Israel away from Jehovah; therefore, these girls were allowed to live.
That hardly explains why the males of the same age were killed though now does it.
As to raping them, it is more logical to assume that they wanted these girls for servants.
Yeah right. That's why they were forcibly examined to find out if they were Virgins.
The simple answer to the questions surrounding Numbers 31 is that God ordered the Midianites to be killed in Numbers 25:17-18. When the army did not carry out this order at the time of the Midianite defeat, it was carried out in a delayed fashion when the army returned with the captives. As to Moses allowing the young girls to remain alive, that was a judgment call from the man with God’s authority over the Israelites.
Here again is that last verse in the quoted passage,
And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
These girls saw their fathers murdered by an invading army of Hebrews. They were then brought as captives back to the Hebrew camps where they watched their older sisters, brothers and mothers massacred. They were then ‘examined’ by their captors, after which they were divided up with the rest of the loot.
25 The LORD said to Moses,
26 "You and Eleazar the priest and the family heads of the community are to count all the people and animals that were captured.
27 Divide the spoils between the soldiers who took part in the battle and the rest of the community.
28 From the soldiers who fought in the battle, set apart as tribute for the LORD one out of every five hundred, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep or goats.
29 Take this tribute from their half share and give it to Eleazar the priest as the LORD's part. 30 From the Israelites' half, select one out of every fifty, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats or other animals. Give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the LORD's tabernacle."
31 So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.32 The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep,
33 72,000 cattle,
34 61,000 donkeys
35 and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.
That is your god christian...
