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.

Bailum the Prophet was on the mountain with Baloch, refusing to curse the Israelites.

Then immediately after this in Numbers 26, we see a scene where the Israelite men are

hoaring 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

Bailum was included among them, because he advised Belot 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 idle 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.

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