FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Numbers 21 - Numbers 25 - Numbers 26 - Map: Land Allotment for the 12 Tribes - Printable Reading Plan (Step 1, Print Users) - The Chosen: Season 5 Sneak Peek Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
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Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Remember the Midianites? Think back to Numbers 25. Balaam the prophet was on the mountain with Balak, refusing to curse the Israelites. Then immediately after this, in Numbers 26, we see a scene where the Israelite men are whoring with the Midianite women and a plague breaks out where God kills 24,000 people.
Then, Phineas, Aaron's grandson, personally kills an Israelite and the Midianite chief's daughter he's having a little rendezvous with, and that's what led up to where we are today. God tells Moses that his final assignment before death is to kill the Midianites. Moses rallies 12,000 men for the task, plus Phineas, son of the high priest, who acts as a sort of chaplain.
He takes some of the holy vessels, though he don't know which ones, and some trumpets. They kill all the men of the land. And you may have noticed that Balaam was included among them, because he advised Balak on how to trip up the Israelites, specifically using the wiles of the women.
After winning the battle, the Israelite warriors bring the women and children back to the Israelite encampment, which was what they typically did after winning a battle. But this isn't just any battle. This is a battle whose primary cause is these women. So Moses ordered the death of all the women who weren't virgins, the women who initiated the idolatry and the loss of 24,000 lives.
It's possible some of the soldiers had even brought back the very women who had led them astray. And even if they weren't the same women, this was still trouble waiting to happen. The husbands of all these idol-worshiping women were all dead now, so they would likely seek out new husbands from among the Israelites, which could recreate the problem all over again.
By ordering them to be put to death, Moses was safeguarding against another possible outbreak of idolatry and plague. After the warriors had purified both themselves and their plunder, all of which had been made impure through the deaths of the battle, God tells them how to divide the plunder between warriors, civilians, priests, and God's portion.
You may have noticed that part of what they brought back from the land were 32,000 virgin females. So what do they do with these? These women, likely young women or girls, would be absorbed into the Israelite community and would eventually be allowed to marry into the Israelites if they turned to God.
and the portion of them that were the Lord's tribute likely ended up working in the service of the sanctuary. Afterward, the Israelites count up all their men, and not a single one of them had died in battle. That is remarkable, miraculous even. Then, because they took a census, they needed to make a ransom payment based on the lives God brought safely back from war.
So they offer up gold from their plunder, roughly 500 pounds of it. For this next section, we've included a link to a map in the show notes in case you're visual. First, what we need to know is that the Jordan River runs north to south. God's allotment of land for the 12 tribes was a little sliver of land west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea.
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