The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 417

by. Indeed the argument ehowe an entire failure, eo to speak, in moral perspective. Harlotry and idolatry are great sins, but there is no reason to believe that God deals with them otherwise than he does with other sine. It was no part of the Divine intention concerning Israel that he should go about as a knight-errant avenging "obscene idolatries." Many a nation just as immoral as Midian rose to greatness, and displayed some valuable virtues, and (it is to be presumed) did some good work in God's world in preparation for the fulness of time. Harlotry and idolatry pre- vail to a frightful extent in Great Britain; but any attempt to pursue them with pains and penalties would be scouted by the conscience of the nation as Pharisaical. The fact is (and it is so obvious that it ought not to have been overlooked) tl.at Midian was overthrown, not because he was given over to an "obscene idolatry,'' wherein he was probably neither much better nor much worse than his neighbours; but because he had made an unprovoked, crafty, and successful attack upon God's people, and had brought thousands of them to a shameful death. The motive which prompted the attack upon them was not horror of their sins, nor fear of their con• tamination, but vengeance; Midian was smitten avowedly "to avenge the children cf Israel" (ver. 2) who had fallen through Baal-peor, and at the same time "to avenge the Lord" (ver. 3), who had been obliged to slay his own people. III. The true justification of these proceedings-which we should now call, and justly call, atrocities-divides itself into two parts. In the first place, we have to deal only with the fact that an expedition was sent by Divine command, to smite the Midianites. Now, this does indeed open up a very difficult m1Jral question, but it does not involve any special difficulty of its own. It is certain that wars of revenge were freely sanctioned under the Old Testament dispensation (see on Exod. xvii. 14- 16 ; 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3). It is practically conceded that they are permitted by the New Testament dispensation. At any rate Christian nations habitually wage wars of revenge even against half-armed savages, and many of those who counsel or carry on such wars are men of really religious character. It is possible that if the principles of the New Testament take a deeper hold upon the national conscience, all such wars will be regarded as crimes. This means simply, that in regard to war the moral sentiment of religious people has changed, and is changing very materially from age to age. Even a bad man will shrink from doing to-day what a good man would have done without the least scruple some centuries ago; and (if the world last) a bad man will be able sincerely to denounce some centuries hence what a good man can bring himself to do with a clear conscience to-day. Now it has been pointed out again and again that when God assumed the Jews to be his peculiar people, he assumed them not only in the social and political stage, but in the moral stage also, which belonged to their place in the world and in history. Just ns God adopted, as King of Israel, the social and political ideas which then prevailed, and made the best of them ; in like manner he adopted the moral ideas then current, and made the best of them, so restraining them in one direction, and so enforcing them in another, and so bringing them all under the influence of religious sanctions, as to prepare the way for the bringing in of a higher morality. What God did for the Jews was not to teach them the precepts of a lofty and perfect morality, which was indeed only possible in connection with the reYelation of his Son, but to teach them to act in all things from religious motives, and with direct reference to his good pleasure. Accordingly God himself, especially in the earlier part of their history as a nation, undertook to guide their vengeance, and taught them to look upon wars of vengeance (since their conscience freely sanctioned them) as waged for his honour and glory, not their own. If this seem to any one unworthy of the Divine Being, let biru DD 2 404 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CB, XXXI, 1-54.