War Against Midian, Part 2

And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses. And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep, and threescore and twelve thousand beeves, and threescore and one thousand asses, and thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him. And the half, which was the portion of them that went out to war, was in number three hundred thousand and seven and thirty thousand and five hundred sheep: and the LORD'S tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and fifteen. And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was threescore and twelve. And the asses were thirty thousand and five hundred; of which the LORD'S tribute was threescore and one. And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was thirty and two persons. And Moses gave the tribute, which was the LORD'S heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the LORD commanded Moses. And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided from the men that warred, (now the half that pertained unto the congregation was three hundred thousand and thirty thousand and seven thousand and five hundred sheep, and thirty and six thousand beeves, and thirty thousand asses and five hundred, and sixteen thousand persons;) Even of the children of Israel's half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.

In my student days on some occasions, professors either individually or in small groups would, at times, be ready to include a few students in their conversations around the lunch table. Perhaps it was to see whether the graduate students were deserving of getting a doctorate, or should be flunked out as rebels as against the system, I don’t know. I recall on one occasion that I laughed at the particularly foul customs, which I won’t go into, of one so called primitive group, and an anthropologist blew up and took me very sharply to task. It was so though I had laughed and carried on in an disturbing way in church. Every primitive rite was, to him, sacred except, of course, Christian services.

On another occasion, I was questioned at length by a scholar engaged in medical research. In those days, most people who felt any sense of community responsibility went to church, and this man did, but his was a Bartian modernism, however he was respectful of my beliefs. In the conversation, it became clear that he was doubtful of much of the historicity of the Bible, but too my surprise, Numbers 31, in particular, our text, and some similar incidents he took very seriously. Many of the diseases called leprosy were now gone, he said, except for Hansen’s Disease, which we term “leprosy.” He felt that many ancient plagues were gone, but could possibly return. History was, to him, and this interested me intensely, like a giant test tube. The right events, a combination of ailments, and human vulnerability could produce the devastations described in the Numbers 25:9 plague, a result of fertility cult practices that Israel indulged in.

In Numbers 31, our text, the necessity laid down that the men of war wash their clothes and bathe, and stay out of the camp for seven days, pass all metals, precious and base, through fire, and to kill all females with sexual experiences, and all males, indicated to him an awareness of the potentially explosive nature of some diseases and epidemics, and he wished we had more information on that episode. This scholar referred to the great flu epidemic after World War 1, and at that time it was not very ancient, but very close, and the millions it had killed, as an analogy. He was impressed with the biblical laws of quarantine and cleanliness.

Now, I cite this fact as an interesting one. Here is a man who didn’t believe most of the Bible, but he looked at certain events like Numbers 31 realistically, and found much to commend in it when so many people in the church are skipping over this type of thing and apologizing for it.

Now it is interesting to note that all booty which could not be purified by fire had to be placed in running water, or the Water of Separation, verse 23, before it could be brought into the camp. Unusual precautions are taken on this occasion. All young males had to be executed as well as all female non-virgins. Since young males in some cultures are early introduced into male lodges and sodomite practices, and the non-virgin females could be and likely were carriers of diseases because of fertility cult practices, diseases which could wipe out many Israelites, this requirement was made by God against the intentions and plans of the soldiers.

Irving L. Jensen has provided a convenient table of the booty taken. The warriors received half, the congregation half, the priests one five-thousandth, and the Levites one-fiftieth. In gratitude to God, and I will skip over the details of his table, for victory without a single casualty, all the gold taken was given to the sanctuary. The gifts are described as given to make atonement for our souls in verse 50, not because there was any war guilt, but in gratitude and to remain covered by God’s mercies. In verse 54, it is described as a memorial gift.

Because this chapter is held up as an example of how evil the biblical God and perspective is, it must be noted first that this was not a normal practice, nor a law for all warfare, but a specific commandment for a specific occasion. It gives no grounds for generalization.

Then second, the modern humanistic objector is far more inhuman. He objects to capital punishment, favors abortion and homosexuality, euthanasia and much more. The humanists increasingly defy moral consequences and deny the validity of any law or any contagion. They deny causality.

I hear regularly about people kissing AIDS victims to prove their superior morality, and Christians who express shock at this are called heartless and immoral. To illustrate, the granddaughter of the late oil rich John Paul Getty came down with AIDS recently, although having a history of cocaine abuse, she believed she acquired AIDS from a surgical transfusion. She couldn’t blame herself. She was married at one time to Christopher Wilding, a son of Elizabeth Taylor. She shares with Wilding custody of two sons, one adopted. Ailene Getty was so panic-stricken on learning of her case of AIDS that Elizabeth Taylor took her into her Bellaire mansion and cradled Ailene Getty to sleep in her own bed, night after night. Writer, Kevin Sessums described this cradling as an American teata{?}, and it is interesting that Susan Sontag’s most recent book, AIDS and its Metaphors, is written as one long diatribe against anyone who is going to bring moralistic concerns to bear on the AIDS problems. It’s somehow simply a disease, and no fault can be attached to anyone who is homosexual or who is heterosexual, for AIDS, and she, in particular feels venomous about Pat Buchanan for daring to make statements implying that there is moral responsibility.

So, we have two clearly mutually exclusive moralities at work in our world today. One condemns God and His law word, and the other exalts what God requires, because there is no truth, nor law, nor any good outside of God.

Some have described this chapter as an example of primitivism, whereas, we must say such people favor evil. We must remember what that doctor back in the thirties told me and expand it. God’s requirements here showed not only an obvious concern for the physical safety and purity of Israel, but also their moral purity. What God required was not what Israel had planned. The girls that were spared became a part of Israel and were absorbed into it later by marriage. One minor sidelight on this chapter is that, in the modern era, normally armies are demobilized slowly, and on occasion, after medical clearances depending on the area of the world they have been in.

In verses 13-18, Moses and Eleazar go outside the camp to meet the returning army, and to require the execution of the sexually-experienced women, and the quarantine for one week of all the soldiers and their booty. This was more than a normal practice, and it again points to the fact of a serious danger of another epidemic, especially from the Midianite women. The quarantine was comparable to that of a leper who had been cleansed of his leprosy, which tells us how serious the need for purification was held to be. There is a fact which even Martin Noth, a modernist whose commentary on the book of Numbers is extremely modernistic and to the left. He writes, “The leaders of the army are reproached by Moses with having left the Midianite women alive and brought them back as prisoners. Although it was these very women who had seduced the Israelites {?} Baal-Peor and had been the real reason for this war of vengeance ordered by Yahweh against the Midianites. They had therefore been the main culprits.” The Midianite women were all schooled in religious prostitution. One scholar says their reputation was as being great beauties. That, we don’t know.

Leviticus 19:29 strictly forbids God’s people from allowing their daughters to become prostitutes, but what we have here in Midian is even worse; promiscuity in the name of religion from a very early age. Varieties of religion prosecution have existed in many cultures and they have been major sources of diseases and social decay.

Now, it is an interesting fact that Mohammed and the Koran orders massacres and seizures of women as a routine part of war, and a necessary part. God requires this on one occasion, and people who praise the Koran insist that the Bible is evil here and elsewhere, but bigotry and inconsistency of such critics is amazing. Ronald B. Allen’s comment is telling, “Such stories are bound to raise questions about the morality of the Old Testament. Ultimately, these questions are darts directed to the person of God. One cannot debate the morality of the Old Testament apart from the morality of God who is represented in these passages, and once one begins to ask ‘Is God moral?’ the very question damns the speaker, for who is man to be the instructor of the Lord? Ultimately, people of faith affirm. In the midst of the most negative environment, the God of Israel will do right.” Given the callousness of modern warfare, total war, and especially against civilians, it comes out now that we have not told the truth about the war against Iraq and how it was wages primarily against civilians. Given the war also against the law-abiding in our streets, for men to condemn God is arrogance indeed, and given the nature of the vindictive war against Christianity being waged the world over against Christians and their persons, with about three hundred killed daily, those who condemn Numbers 31 are telling us more about themselves than God.

T.E. Espin’s comment more than a century ago, was good. He was a leading Anglican commentator. The very words in which the command was 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 the 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 their overruling by God of Balaam’s efforts to curse Israel, they must have known, but in doing so, they were openly rebelling against God. From God then, a no less retribution overtakes them. The sin was national, and the retribution could be no less so.”

The presence of Balaam indicates that a new offensive was being planned against Israel. God ordered a strike to prevent this. This text highlights a contemporary problem: the unwillingness of judges and juries to execute justice where it is due. Men who are guilty before God want an unending indulgence for sin. They are unwilling to condemn lest they be condemned. They say, in effect, to God, “Why can’t you be as merciful as I am?” What they are trying do is to set an example for God themselves, as the example, and this is arrogance indeed. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for this, thy word. We thank thee that thy word is truth. Thy justice all holy and all righteous, give us the faith and the knowledge to follow thee as we ought, to know that thy will must be done, for anything other than thy will is death, for us and all men. Give us believing hearts in Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] I just wonder about the question of war crimes trials following war at the end of World War 2, with the series of trials at Nuremburg, yet the United States took no prisoners {?} pacific, and as time unfolds, various atrocities came to the fore, it seems that some hypocrisy at demanding {?} crimes trial {?}

[Rushdoony] War crime trials had no legal precedent. Moreover, we not only had no legal grounds for it, but we allowed the Russians to introduce all kinds of testimony about crimes they had committed. We executed Germans for the Katyn Forrest Massacres which everyone now knows, who didn’t know it then, were committed by the Russians. A whole host of crimes that the Russians committed, we knowingly winked at them and allowed them to be used. What this now means is a precedent has been set whereby the loser in any war can be executed, and it’s a kangaroo court. That’s what Nuremburg was, and any such court any time in the future. Yes?

[Audience] I see the Germans are going to open up the records of the East German secret police activities, but there is no mention of any retribution for those who committed atrocities in the Soviet for over seventy years.

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is talk about the KGB records being opened up, but all they have revealed is that which is embarrassing to us, up to a point. For example, nothing has been revealed about men like Hiss{?} and others, although something has been revealed about Senator Ted Kennedy, but by and large, they have kept quiet about their real offenses. All they’ve done is to admit to the Katyn Forrest Massacre, but the whole world knew that, that was so well documented. It was a ridiculous admission. So, I think we are being given little tidbits to indicate that they have changed, when there is no evidence that they have. Yes?

[Audience] In the Nuremburg trials was ex post facto?

[Rushdoony] Yes. It was ex post facto law. It was unconstitutional in every respect.

[Audience] And Taft was the only one that stood up against it, wasn’t he?

[Rushdoony] Senator Taft stood up against it, yes. One or two others did subsequently, but Taft spoke out strongly against it. We had a supreme court justice, Jackson, who took part in the Nuremburg trials, and witnesses say that there were points where our judges were obviously embarrassed as the Russians brazenly brought out charges against Germans that the court knew were committed by the Soviet Union. Stalin was pushing us at every point.

[Audience] I was going to say that most people have got to understand the Ten Commandments are not multiple choice.

[Rushdoony] Very good statement. The Ten Commandments are indeed not multiple choice. Well, the interesting and grim fact now is that very few students in our public schools even know that the Nuremburg Trials were held, or which country Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Franklin were leaders of, if they know the same, so that it has become ancient history to this generation, and when you forget history, you have a habit of reliving it. Yes?

[Audience] Hollywood made a story about the Nuremburg Trials, a movie, starring Spencer Tracy. They made it look like it’s proper.

[Rushdoony] Uh huh. Well, they would. Yes. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we know indeed that we live in a rule where evil is praised and godliness vilified. But we know also that man’s courts are not the final court. Thou art judge over all, and thy word is truth, and thy word and thy will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us grace and patience to wait on thee, and to serve thee, and to rejoice that thy will shall be done. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape