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.

Balam 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 chiefs 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

Balam 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-worshipping 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,

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