Numbers 31 Footnotes

31:13-24 The purpose of holy war was the eradication of impure elements, whether persons or property, from a given geographic region. This passage harks back to the idolatrous activity of Baal-peor (chap. 25) and sets the stage for the instructions in 33:50-56 for occupying the promised land by dispossessing the Canaanites and eradicating the marks of their false religion. Hence it is integral to the main theme developed in the book of Numbers: the dangers of rebellion and idolatry. Critics, who suggest this holy-war mentality was a crude feature of ancient cultures and not in keeping with God’s purpose for humanity, have ignored the fact that these instructions were applicable at this critical point in the formation of the theocracy of Israel. Their very survival as the holy community of faith was at stake. Chapter 31 is consistent with the directives given in other pentateuchal passages, including Dt 7:5,24-25; 12:1-12; 20:16-20 (purging of idolatry); and Dt 21:10-14 (female captives). However, the law of Christ, the law of love, supersedes the instructions for Israel in the era of Moses and Joshua. While God still abhors every kind of evil in society, and the people of God must diligently oppose its every expression, “holy war” of the kind recorded here is not the proper response.