The Bible Recap - Day 067 (Numbers 31-32) - Year 4

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Remember the Midianites? Think back to Numbers 25. Bailem the Prophet was on the mountain with Balak, refusing to curse the Israelites. Then immediately after this in Numbers 26, we see a scene where the Israelites. Then immediately after this in numbers 26, we see a scene where the Israelites men are hauring with the Midianite women and a plague breaks out where God kills 24,000 people. Then, thinnest, Aaron's grandson, personally kills an Israelite and the Midianite chief stutteries having a little rendezvous with,

Starting point is 00:00:37 and that's what led up to where we are today. God tells Moses that his final assignment before death is to kill the Midianites. Moses Raleigh's 12,000 men for the task, plus Phineas, son of the High Priest, who acts as a sort of chaplain. He takes some of the holy vessels, though we don't know which ones, and some trumpets. They kill all the men of the land, and you may have noticed that Baalum was included among them, because he advised Balak on how to trip up the Israelites, specifically using the wiles of the women. After winning the battle, the Israelite warriors bring the women and children back to the

Starting point is 00:01:12 Israelite encampment, which was what they typically did after winning a battle. But this isn't just any battle. This is a battle whose primary cause is these women. So Moses ordered the death of all the women who weren't virgins, the women who initiated the idolatry and the loss of 24,000 lives. It's possible some of the soldiers had even brought back the very women

Starting point is 00:01:34 who had led the mystery. And even if they weren't the same women, this was still trouble waiting to happen. The husbands of all these idol worshipping women were all dead now, so they would likely seek out new husbands from among the Israelites, which could recreate the problem all over again. By ordering them to be put to death, Moses was safeguarding against another possible outbreak of idolatry in plague. After the warriors had purified both themselves and their plunder, all of which had been made

Starting point is 00:02:02 impure through the deaths of the battle. God tells them how to divide the plunder between warrior, civilians, priests, and God's portion. You may have noticed that part of what they brought back from the land were 32,000 virgin females. So what do they do with these? These women, likely young women or girls, would be absorbed into the Israelite community and would eventually be allowed to marry into the Israelites

Starting point is 00:02:25 if they turned to God. And the portion of them that were the Lord's tribute likely ended up working in the service of the sanctuary. Afterward, the Israelites count up all their men and not a single one of them had died in battle. That is remarkable, miraculous even. Then because they took a census, they needed to make a ransom payment based on the lives God brought safely back from war. So they offer up gold from their plunder, roughly 500 pounds of it. For this next section, we've included a link to a map in the show notes in case you're visual. First, what we need to know is that the Jordan River runs north to south. God's allotment of land for the 12 tribes was a little sliver of land west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea.

Starting point is 00:03:10 It was long and narrow and roughly the size of New Jersey. At this point in the story, the Israelites are on the east side of the Jordan River. They're not yet in the promised land. They're in the land they won back in numbers 21 when they defeated Sihan King of the Amorites and Ogtheking of Beishin. If you're looking at a modern-day map, the land they're currently in is part of what is modern-day Jordan. The land is apparently pretty fertile because two of the more agriculturally driven tribes really like it. Rubin and Gad want to stay there, even though this isn't part of the land initially promised by God. They approach

Starting point is 00:03:44 Moses about it and he is not having it. He thinks they're just like their parents. They either don't believe God's promise to give them the land of Canaan or they're afraid to fight the Canaanites when they do get there. He's having flashbacks from when the tin spies doubted and he got stuck living in the wilderness for 38 more years. He probably just wants to die already and he's terrified that these guys are going to screw up for him more years. He probably just wants to die already, and he's terrified that these guys are gonna screw it up

Starting point is 00:04:06 for him and everyone. But they're like, no, Moses, pull up a rock, sit out, let us explain. And they tell him they'll totally cross the Jordan River along with everyone and fight for Canaan, but they just want to be able to come back to this land when it's all said and done. So Moses agrees, but he warns them that if they break

Starting point is 00:04:24 their promise, they won't get the land after all. His response implies that they've made a vow to God, kind of like the ones we read about yesterday. Ruben and Gads settle into their land, and after defeating some additional people, so does the half-tribe of Manasseh. By the way, this is the first time we've seen the term half-tribe mentioned in the Bible. Here's what happened. At some point the people of Manasseh divided

Starting point is 00:04:47 among itself. So half of the tribe of Manasseh will settle east of the Jordan River, outside the original land of the promise, along with the tribes of Ruben and Gad. These are known as the trans-Jordanian tribes because they are across the Jordan. Since the Promised Land was always about a specific plot of land, this may or may not be a problem in the grand scheme of things. Historians and theologians have different views on this situation, but they mostly boil down to some version of these two opinions. A, that is not the land that God a lot of them so it's not Holy Land, or B, land that is one in a holy war also belongs to God, so this land is

Starting point is 00:05:27 equally honorable for them to dwell in. What is not contested is that God's name is all over these pages, so where did you see him at work today? My God shot was when I saw how seriously he takes my fidelity to him. Even though we don't see it being specifically commanded by God, Moses was commanding that all the temptation for Israel be eradicated when he called for the killing of all the Midianite women.

Starting point is 00:05:53 He knew that falling into apostasy would mean the Israelites would be under the death sentence themselves. The Puritan writer John Owen said, be killing sin or it will be killing you. Neither he nor I are talking about killing people here, but about killing tippedation. Do I treat my temptations the way Moses did? Like they're a predator out to destroy me?

Starting point is 00:06:16 Or do I try to tame them and keep them for myself like the soldiers did? God is so vigilant for my heart, and he knows it's not easy to be strong. He wants the temptations eradicated if they might lead me to forget that my deepest joy is found in him. May God's spirit always help me to remember that he's where the joy is. Do you have a friend or family member who is deaf?

Starting point is 00:06:43 We're excited to share that the Bible recap is now available in American Sign Language, and we would love for your deaf friends or family members to join us. We publish each day's recap video to our ASL Facebook group. You can either search Facebook for the Bible recap in ASL, or click the link in today's show notes. The Bible recap is brought to you by D-group, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week.

The Bible Recap - Day 067 (Numbers 31-32) - Year 4

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