God of Vengeance and Mercy

My Parshah Journal

Paul Ikonen
7 July 2010

Portion: Mattot/Massei
Numbers 30:2-36:13

This week’s portion is hard to hear. It inevitably leaves its reader with many questions

about the desires of God, His justice, what His intentions are in the choices He makes.

We are blessed to have a God who not only allows questions but gives answer too. The

false gods won’t act that way, they demand allegiance even in the face of contradiction

and acts of inefficiency. The reason for this is because their false nature is manifested in

the priests of the cult; the god is made in some likeness and given worship by the masses

while the true voice of the god comes from the spiritual leaders deceiving the people.

True, over time the priests may start believing their deity exists but the point is that the

god gives no heed to the voice of it’s people, at least not to the extent that the God of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does.

Before the portion gets into the hard materiel it starts with a chapter on vows and

oaths. Interestingly the main idea concerns the oaths made by Israelite women and how

their father or husband has charge over their oaths. For me, these verses give evidence

that God cares for the women in the community and wants to guard the decisions they

make. For men, we simply read that if they make a vow, they must keep it, it is a binding

obligation. For women we have a more lengthy discussion about in what situations the

obligation is determined valid. If she is in her father’s house and her father hears it and
forbids it than it will not stand. The same goes for the woman if she is married and her

husband hears.

One word that seems vital to this chapter is the word “rash”. We all make rash

decisions, both men and women, so if a man makes a rash decision, it is on his own head

but if a woman makes a rash decision, she is safeguarded my the man set in place over

her. These verses call my mind to the book of Ephesians where Paul is giving instruction

concerning the role of husband. Ephesians 5:28 reads – “So husbands ought to love their

wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself.” A husband looks out

for the safety and interest of his wife not wanting her to fall into situations that would be

detrimental to the household.

This value, we learn, is not so with the Midianites. In the last Parsha, Pinchas, we

saw that Moab and Midian had sent their daughters to fornicate with and lead the men of

Israel to worship their false gods. What’s worse, we learn that they were successful!

Because of that we read that God declares war on the house of Midian and in chapter

thirty-one on Numbers, God calls on the sons of Israel to attack.

One quick note in the first verses of this chapter, Pinchas has become a national

icon already and a priest as God commanded. In verse six we read that Pinchas served as

priest on the campaign and was in charge of sounding the trumpet blasts. As priest he led

the way of the movement of the Ark of God’s Covenant, in a sense representing the

moving presence of God and the trumpets were brought into battle to be blown so that the

fighting men would know that God was fighting with and for them.

The text gives a list of significant men that were killed in battle; one that sticks

out is Balaam son of Beor. Balaam was brought by Balak, King of Moab to curse the
Israelites but he was not allowed too. Balaam did however give Balak the idea of

sending the daughters of his nation to entice the Israelites. Up to this point we only read

of Moab women making themselves a snare for Israel but than a Midianite woman shows

up, this is when Pinchas in his zeal kills the woman and the man. Balaam assists both

Moab and Midian in their plans and at the point of his death he was in the land of Midian.

We will read about God’s reaction to Moab in the following Parsha.

As was the custom in Israelite warfare, the soldiers killed all the men in the land

of Midian but brought back with them all the women and children. They presented the

captive in front of Moses and Eleazar but the reaction of their leaders is not good. Moses

is angry because they spared all the women, the very women that acted to trap Israel in

their scheme. Moses orders the men to slay all the women who were not a virgin. The

idea was that all the women who were not a virgin were part of the plan against Israel.

And if that wasn’t hard enough, Moses command also that every male child also be slain.

Presumably, this is so that one day the boys will grow up and avenge their people. The

young girls however, as is custom in warfare, are given to Israel as wives or servants. It’s

important to note that there were laws in place to protect these girls from abuses they

would have incurred had they been captive to other foreign peoples. The chapter ends

with the rest of the booty purified and distributed as directed by Moses and Eleazar.

The next chapter tells the story of the Reubenites and Gadites who kept charge of

the cattle. They saw that the land on the east side of the Jordan was prime land for their

use and requested that Moses allow them to settle there. At first Moses is unwilling to

allow it but after further case being made, he allows them to stay. The condition was that
the men of Reuben and Gad were to help the other tribes take possession of the land of

Canaan.

33:1-49, Moses gives an account of how the people got from Egypt to the Jordan.

A kind of motivational speech to get them pumped about where they are going next. In

verses 50-56 God instructs the people on their charge to dispossess all the people of

Canaan and warns them that if they do not than those that are left will become stings in

their eyes and thorns in their sides. They shall harass you in the land in which you live

and God will do to you what He planned to do to them. The main reason given for this

total dispossession is that God wants His people totally free from idolatry and we will see

that because they do not obey God, they do find grief from the people they allow to stay.

Chapters 34 and 35 outline how and where the tribes will take possession of the land,

where the borders will lay and how the cities of the Levites will be arranged.

The final two stories of the Book of Numbers concern the mercy of God and the

justice He demands of His people. The first story tells of how Israel is to apportion cities

of refuge within its borders. Cities of refuge act as a safe haven for Israelites who have

accidentally killed another. They flee to these cities and are given fair trial and judgment.

If the one charged is found guilty than he is punished b death, if he is innocent than he

must stay and live in the city until the High Priest, who was in office at the time of the

verdict, dies and is replaced, than he is allowed to go back home.

In the second story we hear about the daughters of Zelophehad again. This time

the clan leaders of Manasseh appeal to Moses that if the daughters marry outside their

tribe, the tribe will forfeit their land to the people of whom the daughters marry. Moses
requests a word from God again and again he receives one. The daughters are to marry

from within their own tribe as to not take from their tribe what was promised to them.

The book of Numbers closes with this verse:

“These are the commandments and regulations that the LORD enjoined upon Israel,

through Moses, on the steppes of Moab, at the Jordan near Jericho.” (36:13) It is a verse

that serves as a postscript to the preceding laws, it isn’t making a statement about the

book as a whole but rather concerning the laws that were discussed in the steppes of

Moab, which started at Numbers 22:1.

It is customary to conclude a book of the Torah with the following blessing, I

leave it for you:

“Chazak, chazak, v’nit’chazek!”

(Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!)