Numbers 31
Numbers 31 is the 31st chapter of the Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Pentateuch, the central part of the Hebrew Bible, a sacred text in Judaism and Christianity. Scholars such as Israel Knohl and Dennis T. Olson name this chapter the War against the Midianites.
Set in the southern Transjordanian regions of Moab and Midian, it narrates the Israelites waging war against the Midianites, commanded by Phinehas and Moses. They killed the men, including their five kings and Balaam, burnt their settlements and took captive the women, children and livestock. Moses commanded the Israelites to kill the boys, and women who had sex with men, and spare the virgin girls for themselves. The spoils of war were then divided between Eleazar, the Levitical priesthood, soldiers and Yahweh.
Much scholarly and religious controversy exists surrounding the authorship, meaning and ethics of this chapter of Numbers. It is closely connected to Numbers 25.
Authorship
The majority of modern biblical scholars believe that the Torah reached its present form in the post-Exilic period, based on pre-existing written and oral traditions, as well as contemporary geographical and political realities. Numbers is a Priestly redaction of a non-Priestly original.Scholars generally recognise that mentions of the Midianites in chapters Numbers 22–24 are secondary Priestly additions. They also generally agree that Numbers 25:1–5 contains an earlier version of the story involving the women of Moab, for which the Israelite chiefs are punished by the judges. This earlier version was later augmented by the account in Numbers 25:6–18 with the Midianite women and Phinehas' priesthood as their new focus, perhaps using elements from Psalm 106:28–31 to work with. These additions, as well as the mention of a Midianite in chapter 25 in a story about the Moabites, may have been an attempt by a later editor to create a connection between Moab and Midian. Martin Noth argued that the author of chapter 31 was probably aware of the combined non-P/P text in chapter 25, and probably knew the entire composite Pentateuch, therefore Numbers 31 was written in whole or in part by an author writing later than regular P. Israel Knohl argued Numbers 31 was in fact part of the Holiness code, which was later added to the Priestly source. He pointed to similarities in content, such as the focus on purification in Numbers 5:1–4, chapter 19 and 31:19–24, as well as in linguistics in Numbers 10:9, 27:17, 31:6,19 and Exodus 40:15, all of which had been previously identified with the Holiness School by other scholars. Some linguistic and theological features also distinguish Numbers 31 from the Priestly Torah text, such as the wrath of God, which is mentioned several times by HS but never by PT. Some scholars think that the added text was written at a time when the priestly line of Phinehas' descendants was being challenged.
Background
Israelite–Moabite fraternisation at Peor (Numbers 25:1–9)
The Book of Numbers traces the origins of the Israelite–Midianite conflict in Chapters 22 through 25. The Israelites, travelling from Egypt and encamping on the eastern bank of the Jordan River across from Jericho, were on the brink of war with the Moabites. The Moabite king Balak hired the sorcerer Balaam to curse the Israelite soldiers from the peak of Mount Peor, but the Israelite god Yahweh forced him to instead bless the Israelites encamped at Shittim, which he did. Due to his behavior with the Midianites, the Rabbis interpret Balaam as responsible for the behavior during the Heresy of Peor, which they consider to have been unchastity, and consequently the death of 24,000 victims of the plague which God sent as punishment. When Balaam saw that he could not curse the children of Israel, the Rabbis assert that he advised Balak, as a last resort, to tempt the Hebrew nation to immoral acts and, through these, to the worship of Baal-peor. The God of the Hebrews, adds Balaam, according to the Rabbis, hates lewdness, and idol worshipping; severe chastisement must follow Thus the Israelite men began to fraternise with Moabite women by having sex with them and worshipping their gods, including Baal. This angered Yahweh, and he instructed Moses to massacre all Israelite men who had done this; Moses passed on these instructions to the judges of Israel.Plague inside the Israelite camp (Numbers 25:6–18)
In verse 6, the narrative suddenly shifts when the Israelite man Zimri brings the Midianite woman Kozbi to the Israelite camp, after which the Israelites are said to have been hit by a plague that left 24,000 dead. Phinehas killed Zimri and Kozbi, ending the plague. Yahweh claimed that Kozbi brought this plague upon the Israelites and told them to "treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them".Interlude (Numbers 26–30)
The next four chapters say nothing about the Incident at Peor, except that the plague had passed. Yahweh instructed Moses and his priest Eleazar to take a census amongst the Israelites, settled an inheritance dispute and the future succession of Moses by Joshua, instructed the Israelites how to conduct certain sacrifices and festivals, and regulated vows between men and women, and fathers and daughters.Narrative
Preparations (verses 1–6)
In verses 1 and 2, Yahweh reminded Moses to take revenge on the Midianites as instructed in Numbers 25:16–18, as his last act before his death. Accordingly, Moses instructed a thousand men of each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel – 12,000 in total, under Phinehas' leadership – to attack Midian.War (7–13)
The Israelite soldiers are narrated to have killed all Midianite men, including the five kings, as well as the sorcerer Balaam. According to verse 49, the Israelites themselves suffered zero casualties. All Midianite towns and camps were burnt; all Midianite women, children and livestock were deported as captives to the "camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho", where Moses and Eleazar received them.Killing of captive boys and non-virgin women (14–18)
Moses was angry that the soldiers had left all women alive, saying: "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the Peor incident, so a plague struck Yahweh's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."Ritual purification (19–24)
Next, Moses and Eleazar instructed the soldiers to ritually cleanse and purify themselves, the captives and all objects they had over a period of seven days. Objects mentioned are the clothes, all objects of leather, goat hair and wood, and all metal objects, specifying that all fireproof objects had to be cleansed by both fire and water, the rest only by water.Division of spoils of war (25–54)
The plunder from the Midianite campaign was "675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man." Yahweh instructed Moses and Eleazar to divide these spoils according to a 1:1 ratio between the Israelite soldiers on the one hand, and the Israelite civilians on the other. Yahweh demanded a 0.2% share of the soldiers' half of the spoils for himself; this tribute would be given to him via the Levites, who were responsible for the care of Yahweh's tabernacle. Some of the Midianite golden jewellery plundered during the war was also offered as a gift to Yahweh "to make atonement for ourselves before Yahweh".Interpretation
Historicity and theology
The scholarly consensus is that this war did not take place, certainly not as narrated. Within the wider context of the Exodus, there probably never was an invasion of Canaan by all Israelites escaping from slavery in Egypt. Scholars such as Mark S. Smith assert that Israelite culture emerged from the wider Canaanite culture surrounding it, with whom it had strong linguistic, religious and other cultural links. There was no political unification of several Semitic Canaanite tribes into a single Israelite state until after 1100 BCE. Although some Egyptologists such as Redford, Na'aman and Bietak have argued that some Canaanites may have been deported to Egypt during the Nineteenth Dynasty's occupation and rule over Canaan under pharaoh Ramesses II, they say there is no indication that this included all so-called "Proto-Israelites", most of whom would have experienced Egyptian rule inside Canaan itself in the late 13th century BCE. Na'aman argued that the existing narrative in the collective Hebrew memory of Egyptian rule "was remodeled according to the realities of the late eighth and seventh centuries in Canaan, integrating the experience with the Assyrian oppression and deportations." The modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely a mythical figure while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C." and that archaeology is unable to confirm either way.The narrative of Numbers 31 specifically is one out of many in the Hebrew Bible seeking to establish the Israelites as the chosen people of the god Yahweh, who blessed them with victory in battle, health and prosperity, as long as they were faithful to his commands. This second generation of Israelites suffered not a single casualty throughout Numbers 26–36, while the first generation suffered much death in the wilderness. The claims that 12,000 Israelite soldiers exterminated or captured the entire Midianite population and destroyed all their towns without suffering a single casualty are held to be historically impossible, and should be understood as symbolic. Moreover, even other biblical books set in later times still refer to the Midianites as an independent people, such as Judges chapters 6–8, where Gideon fights them. Some Biblical non-literalists hold that the author wished to convey a theological message about who Yahweh, Moses, Eleazar and Phinehas were, and how powerful the Israelites would be if Yahweh was on their side.
Olson noted that the name Kozbi comes from the three Hebrew consonants kzb, meaning "to lie, deceive"; the idea that Kozbi deceived the Israelites is emphasised in verse 25:18: " deceived you with their tricks in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of that incident." This suggests she was not a historical character, but invented as a metaphor for danger to the Israelites.
Brown described how the structure of Numbers 31 showed a pattern of 'command, obedience, extension, purification, command, obedience, extension.' Yahweh commands the Israelites through Moses to execute vengeance and divide the spoils, the Israelite soldiers obey, then do more than Yahweh commanded ; the purification is the only action that happens only once and functions as a bridge between the two series. Both Olson and Brown noted that Moses is portrayed as remarkably passive in chapter 25 and, as he was failing to solve the problem, Phinehas had to intervene and take the initiative to slay Kozbi and Zimri, was granted the eternal priesthood and later allowed to lead the Israelites against Midian. Brown added that chapter 27 further undermined the political position of an increasingly disobedient Moses in favour of the priesthood, with Yahweh revealing Moses' time is up and he will soon die. This supports the view that the added text was written at a time when the priestly line of Phinehas' descendants was being challenged, as it bolsters their legitimacy as the priestly successors of Moses.