The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 416

deliberntely, craftily, nnd successfully, under the advice of Balaam. 'l'hey had so acted ns if e.. g. a modern nation were to pour its opium into the ports of a dreaded neighbour in time of peace, not simply for the sake of gain (which ia base enough), but with deliberate intent to ruin the morals and destroy the manhood of the nation. Such a course of action, if proved, would be held to justify any reprisals possible '\\ithin the limits of legitimate war; Christian nations have avenged fo.r less weighty injuries by bloody wars in this very century. Midian, therefore, was attacked by a detachment of the Israelites, and for some reason seems to have been unable either to fight or to fly. Thereupon all the men (i. e. all who bore arms) were slain; the towns and hamlets were destroyed ; the women, children, and cattle driven o:ff as booty. So far the Israelites had but followed the ordinary customs of war, with this great exception in their favour, that they offered (as is evident from ths narrative) no violence to the women. Upon their return to the camp Moses was greatly dis- pleased at the fact of the Midia.nitish women having been bi:ought in, and gave orders that all the male children and all the women who were not virgins were to be slain, The inspection necessary to determine the latter point was left presumably to the soldiers. The Ta.rgum of Palestine indeed inserts a fable concerning some miracul- ous, or rather magical, test which was used to decide the question in each individual case. But this is simply a fable invented to avoid a disagreeable conclusion ; both soldiers and captives were unclean, and were kept apart ; and the narrative clearly implies that there wu no communication between them and the people at large until long after the slaughter was over. To put the matter boldly, we have to face the fact that, under Moses' directions, 12,000 soldiers had to deal with perhe.ps 50,000 women, first by ascertaining that they were not virgins, and then by killing them in cold blood. It is a small additional horror that a multitude of infants must have perished directly or indirectly with their mothers. II. It is commonly urged in vindication of this masse.cre that the war was God's war, and that God had a perfect right to exterminate a most gu.ilty people. This is true in a sense. li God had been pleased to visit the Midia.nites with pestilence, famine, er hordes of savages worse than themselves, no one would have charged him with injustice. All who believe in an over-ruling Providence believe that in one way or other God bas provided that great wickedness in a. nation shall be greatly punished. But that is beside the. question altogether; the difficulty is, not that the Midianites were exterminated, but that they were exterminated in an inhuman man- ner by the Israelites. li they had been so many swine the work would have been reYo!ting; being men, women, and children, with all the ineffaceable beauty, interest, and hope of our common humanity upon them, the very soul sickens to think upon the cruel details of their slaughter. An ordinarily good man, sharing the feelings which do honour to the present century, would certainly have flung down his sword and braved all wrath human or Divine, rather than go on with so hateful a work; and there is not surely any Christian tea.char who would not say that he acted quite rightly; if such orders proceeded from God's undoubted representative to-day, it would be necessary deliberately to disobey them. It is urged again that the question at issue really was, 11 whether an obscene and debasing idolatry should undermine the foundations of human society," or whether an awful judgment should at once stamp out the sinners, and brand the sin for ever. But no such question was at issue. There were obscene and debasing idolatries in abundance round about Israel, but 110 effort was made to exterminate them; the Moe.bites in particular seem to have been just as licentious as the Midianites at this time (see eh. :uv. 1-3), and certainly were quite as idolatrous, and ,1et they were puaed OB. XXXI. 1-64.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS.