Numbers 30-31

Numbers 30-31

The importance of keeping your word is discussed in Numbers 30, beginning with men’s vows. Anytime a man made a vow to God or made a pledge not to do something, he was bound by his word. He was not allowed to break the vow or pledge. This goes along with the idea of the different covenants and how they were not to be broken. God made a big deal about covenants and promises, expecting people to keep their word and not decide to go back on it if some situation in life changed. There was no excuse good enough to break either a covenant or a promise. As for women, they were bound by the same standards. The only exceptions were if they were not yet married and their father opposed the vow that they made, or if they were married and their husband opposed the vow that they made.

After these commands, God instructs Israel to go to war against Midian. What is interesting is that he only asks for 1,000 Israelites from each tribe. So with 12,000 men, God is preparing to go up against an entire nation. Now while Scripture does not mention how many Midianites they were fighting against, the results of the battle show that the Israelites were probably outnumbered. The point of the battle was to punish the Midianites for what they had done to Israel. The women of the nation had seduced Israel, and this battle was God’s way of punishing those women. But god was also demonstrating His power, once again showing Israel and Midian who He was and what He could do. He wanted them all to be clear that He was the only God, and through Israel’s victory, His name was made known within those nations.

The Israelites messed up in only killing the men of the nation and leaving the women alive for themselves, when it was many of those women who had been the ones that deceived Israel in the first place. God became upset with Israel for not destroying the nation as He had commanded and had them go back and finish their job. This may sound really simple, but we must always finish whatever we start, especially when we know it is a command from God. We cannot do only half of the job and expect things to work out. Time and time again we have seen the importance of following all of God’s commands, every specific detail. God expects full obedience, for partial obedience is actually disobedience. The Israelites ended up following God’s commands, and they went back and killed every woman who had been involved in Balaam’s trickery.

What is interesting here is that Balaam is mentioned once again, but this time not in a positive manner. It is unclear what happened to him between Israel’s first encounter with Balaam and this second encounter, but he had apparently drifted from God’s commands and had turned on Israel in some way. Numbers 31 suggests that it was Balaam who advised the women to seduce Israel. That being the case, this war was as much against Balaam as it was Midian. This also shows the importance of continual obedience. We may, like Balaam, do well in serving God in one area of our lives, but when a different situation comes up later on, we must make sure that we continue to give Him our full obedience, for if we do not, that too is disobedience.

There is one final note on the size of Midian. Remember that Israel only took 12,000 men to battle. The end of Numbers 31 says that they came back with 32,000 women who had been spared since they had not been involved in the treachery instituted by Balaam. Who knows how many other women there were that had been killed, and there were at least that many, if not more, men in Midian as well. It is possible, that Israel had to go up against nearly 100,000 Midianites (which includes women and children) that day. They were most definitely outnumbered, but God gave them the victory. In leaving the Israelites outnumbered, He made sure that the glory would go to Him and not to Israel. He wanted them to once again recognize His power so that they would not depend on their own strength.

Matt