What to Do with the Hard Passages in the Bible? (Numbers 31-36)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Is God a Moral Monster?

This was the title of Paul Copan’s book, which answers some of the more challenging scripture passages. Numbers 31 is undoubtedly one of these such passages. Keep in mind the historical context of this chapter. Balaam, after blessing Israel, encourages King Balak of Moab to use the woman of Moab to seduce the Israelite men into orgiastic adultery and Baal worship. In response, the Israelites: 

⁷ waged war against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and killed every male. ⁸ Along with the others slain by them, they killed the Midianite kings—Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. ⁹ The Israelites took the Midianite women and their dependents captive, and they plundered all their cattle, flocks, and property. ¹⁰ Then they burned all the cities where the Midianites lived, as well as all their encampments, ¹¹ and took away all the spoils of war and the captives, both people and animals. ¹² They brought the prisoners, animals, and spoils of war to Moses, the priest Eleazar, and the Israelite community at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

As if that’s not a gruesome enough picture, God says in verses 17-18, ¹⁷ “So now, kill every male among the dependents and kill every woman who has gone to bed with a man, ¹⁸ but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not gone to bed with a man.”

So what is going on here? Some authors advocate for a nonviolent understanding of God and argue that certain Old Testament narratives depict a human projection of violence onto God rather than accurately reflecting the divine character. They contend that Jesus' teachings and life exemplify a nonviolent God and interpret the conquest passages as a reflection of the ancient Israelites' cultural and historical context rather than a faithful representation of God's nature. But this view raises more questions than answers. As Roy Gane writes,

Those of us who accept the entire Bible as the Word of God have no choice but to admit that God sometimes gives up on groups of people and chooses to destroy them (Gen. 6–7; 19; Rev. 20), and that during a certain phase of history he uniquely delegated a carefully restricted part of his destructive work to his chosen nation of ancient Israel, which he tightly controlled and held accountable under theocratic rule.^[1]

Often, it’s only as we look closer at a troubling passage that some of the pieces start to make sense. Evidently, the sin of the Midianites was so great that God determined death was the only option. (Numbers 25:16-17) And as Roy Gane notes, there are several indicators that God was indeed merciful to the Midianites before giving this command.

1.     He gave these people ample opportunity to know him through witnesses such as Abraham and Melchizedek (e.g., Gen. 14:17–24).

2.     He kept his people of Israel waiting in Egypt until the end of four centuries of probation for the Amorites (Gen. 15:13, 16). This is more than three times the 120 years he gave the antediluvian world (6:3).

3.     Depraved inhabitants of Canaan practiced gross immorality (e.g., Lev. 18:3, 27–28) and child sacrifice (e.g., Deut. 12:31). If God hadn’t destroyed them, he would have owed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah an apology (cf. Gen. 18–19).

4.     As exemplified by what happened at Shittim (Num. 25), idolatrous and immoral men and women in close proximity to the Israelites would inevitably corrupt them and thereby cause their destruction (Deut. 7:4; 20:18). The Lord’s ideal for the Israelites was incompatible with the Canaanite environment. 

5.     The fact that the Lord threatened to treat unfaithful Israelites like Canaanites (Lev. 18:28; Num. 33:55–56; see Bridging Contexts section on Num. 16:1–35) shows that his vendetta was against wickedness, not ethnicity. Those who rebel against him are subject to “equal-opportunity punishment.”^[2]

That said, while the killing of military-age males might seem justified, what are we to make of verse 18, which says, “But keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not gone to bed with a man.” Paul Copan offers this word of clarification:

Some critics have crassly suggested that Israelite men were free simply to grab and rape young virgins. Not so. They were saved precisely because they hadn’t degraded themselves by seducing Israelite men. As a backdrop, have a look again at Deuteronomy 21:10–14. There, a Gentile female POW couldn’t be used as a sex object. An Israelite male had to carefully follow proper procedures before she could be taken as a wife. In light of the highly sensitive nature of sexual purity in Israel and for Israel’s soldiers, specific protocols had to be followed. Rape was most certainly excluded as an extracurricular activity in warfare.[3]

All this said, it's good to do a couple of things when reading the Old Testament and coming across troubling passages such as Numbers 31. First, study the context. Second, look for the true character of God. Third, interpret this passage through the totality of God’s character revealed in Scripture. Fourth, we must accept that there are things we will not understand. As Gane writes,

It is pointless either to defend or condemn God. Our attempts at theodicy—justifying God’s character—are stimulating exercises, but in the final analysis we can only stand back and let God be God, admitting that our reasonings are flawed by inadequate perspective. Ultimately, our acceptance of his character is a matter of faith. He has given us plenty of evidence to trust him, but not enough to penetrate all the mysteries of his ways. ¹³

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | I praise you for being a God I can trust, even when my mind can’t fully understand your actions. You are perfect and the very essence of love.

Release | I release my desire to justify your character. You are God, and I am not.

Ask | Teach me your ways, and help me to trust you when I do not understand. Work redemptively in my heart, and show me any areas in which I have ignored sin in my life.  

Yield | I commit to trusting you and praying for those who do evil. Bring redemption and justice to our sinful world.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

While it’s easy to look at passages like the Sermon on the Mount and say God would never condone violence, passages like Revelation 6:10 tell us otherwise when martyrs call out, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” As Paul Copan writes,

Alongside his call to love enemies and pray for persecutors, Jesus affirms the rightness of believers’ prayers “day and night” for God to “bring about justice” (Luke 18:7-8). To pray that God would work redemptively in evil human hearts (say, those of ISIS terrorists) doesn’t contradict the prayer that, if necessary, God would bring an end to them in judgment if they persist in their evil.[4]

In summary, while passages like Numbers 31 are challenging to understand, the proper response isn’t to avoid them. Instead, it should be to view them in the context of who God is and how he was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.  

^[1]Roy Gane, Leviticus, Numbers, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 772.

^[2]Roy Gane, Leviticus, Numbers, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 772-773.

[3] Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (p. 180). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[4] Paul Copan, “Greg Boyd’s Misunderstandings of the ‘Warrior God,” The Gospel Coalition, accessed January 20, 2024, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/crucifixion-warrior-god-greg-boyd/.