Catholic Commentary
The Conduct and Outcome of the Campaign
7They fought against Midian, as Yahweh commanded Moses. They killed every male.8They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.9The children of Israel took the women of Midian captive with their little ones; and all their livestock, all their flocks, and all their goods, they took as plunder.10All their cities in the places in which they lived, and all their encampments, they burned with fire.11They took all the captives, and all the plunder, both of man and of animal.12They brought the captives with the prey and the plunder, to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan at Jericho.
Numbers 31:7–12 describes Israel's military campaign against Midian in obedience to God's command, resulting in the death of all male Midianites, five named kings, and the prophet Balaam, while their cities were burned and women, children, and livestock were captured as spoil. The army then brought all captives and plunder to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the Israelite congregation at the Jordan plains for proper distribution and accountability.
Balaam had real spiritual gifts but weaponized them against God's people for profit — and in every age, the Church must name those who do the same.
Commentary
Numbers 31:7 — "They killed every male." The Hebrew verb nāḵāh ("to strike down") is used for acts of total military destruction. The command to fight Midian originates in Numbers 25:16–18, where God explicitly links this war to the Midianites' role in seducing Israel into the idolatry of Baal-Peor and the sexual immorality that followed. The death of every male is therefore presented not as ethnic extermination but as judicial punishment for a specific covenant crime: the deliberate corruption of God's people. The text insists on the divine mandate — "as Yahweh commanded Moses" — placing the action within a framework of sacred justice rather than tribal vengeance.
Numbers 31:8 — The five kings and Balaam. The five kings — Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba — are named in Joshua 13:21 as vassals of Sihon, the Amorite king already defeated by Israel. Their deaths signal the collapse of the Midianite tribal confederation. Most striking is the explicit mention of Balaam son of Beor. In Numbers 22–24, Balaam was hired to curse Israel but, moved by God, blessed them instead. Yet Numbers 31:16 (and 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11; Revelation 2:14) reveals that Balaam subsequently advised the Midianites on how to corrupt Israel through Baal-Peor. His death by the sword — not by divine plague or heavenly fire, but in the chaos of battle — is narrated matter-of-factly, signaling that those who weaponize spiritual gifts against God's people share in the judgment that falls on those they serve.
Numbers 31:9 — Women, children, and livestock taken captive. The capture of women and children, along with livestock and goods, follows the convention of Ancient Near Eastern warfare and anticipates a further legal complication that Moses will address in verses 15–18: that many of these very women were the ones who had led Israel astray at Peor. The livestock and material goods represent legitimate spoil under Israelite law (cf. Deuteronomy 20:14). The children are treated as non-combatants. This verse sets up the moral tension that the rest of the chapter will have to resolve.
Numbers 31:10 — Cities and encampments burned. The burning of cities and encampments (ṭîrôt, literally "tent-villages" or semi-permanent settlements) represents the destruction of the institutional infrastructure of Midianite society. This is not a spontaneous act of rage but a systematic dismantling of the social order that had been weaponized against Israel. Fire in Mosaic law is a symbol of purification as well as destruction — the same fire that consumes the burnt offering and later the idols of Canaan.
Numbers 31:11 — All captives and plunder gathered. The orderly collection of all captives and plunder emphasizes that nothing was lost, wasted, or illegitimately taken. This contrasts sharply with Achan's secret theft of devoted things in Joshua 7. The gathering anticipates a proper accounting before lawful authority.
Numbers 31:12 — Presented to Moses, Eleazar, and the congregation. The returning army does not dispose of the spoils independently. They bring everything — captives, prey, plunder — to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the entire congregation. This triadic presentation is significant: Moses represents divine law, Eleazar the priesthood and liturgical order, and the congregation the covenant community as a whole. Sacred warfare, in Israel's understanding, is always accountable to God's appointed mediators and to the community. The location — "the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho" — is the same place where Israel is encamped for the crossing into Canaan, linking this episode to the imminent fulfillment of the Promised Land.
Typological and Spiritual Senses: Origen of Alexandria (Homilies on Numbers, Hom. XXVI) reads the Midianite war as a figure of the soul's warfare against vice. The five kings of Midian correspond to the five senses through which temptation enters the soul; Balaam represents the spirit of false prophecy that counsels accommodation to sin. The burning of cities represents the purging of habitual sins from the interior life. This allegorical reading does not dissolve the historical sense but extends it into the life of Christian discipleship.
Catholic Commentary
The passage confronts Catholic readers with one of the most theologically demanding problems in the Old Testament: the so-called "texts of terror," where God appears to command large-scale violence. Catholic tradition approaches this in several interlocking ways.
The Development of Revelation. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum (§15) affirms that the Old Testament books, "though they contain things which are imperfect and provisional," nonetheless bear authentic witness to God's pedagogy with humanity. St. Augustine (Contra Faustum, Book XXII) argued that God, as the author of life and death, can command acts that would be unjust if undertaken by human initiative, because He exercises sovereign dominion over creation. What looks like raw violence is, in this reading, divine judgment executed through human instruments.
Typology and the Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§117–119) teaches that the spiritual sense of Scripture includes the typological: Old Testament events prefigure realities in Christ. The Church Fathers consistently read Israel's wars as figures of spiritual warfare. St. Gregory of Nyssa (Life of Moses) sees the Exodus campaigns as an allegory of the soul advancing in virtue, destroying everything in itself that is hostile to God. Balaam's death in particular prefigures the defeat of the demonic counselor — the voice that outwardly blesses but inwardly engineers the soul's ruin.
Justice and Mercy in Tension. The Catechism (§2309) acknowledges that legitimate defense, including collective defense of a community, can be morally justified. Midian's crime was not merely military aggression but a deliberate theological assault — the corruption of Israel's covenant fidelity. The punishment is proportionate to a crime that threatened the salvation history of all humanity. In this light, the campaign is inseparable from the preservation of the messianic lineage that would ultimately bear Christ into the world.
For Today
Numbers 31:7–12 challenges the contemporary Catholic to take seriously what the tradition calls "spiritual warfare" — not as metaphor, but as a description of real stakes. Balaam's trajectory is a mirror held up to our age: he had genuine spiritual gifts (his oracles are among the most beautiful in the Pentateuch), yet he ultimately turned those gifts against the people of God for personal gain. The warning is pointed. Catholics in positions of teaching, pastoral leadership, or cultural influence who deploy theological language to erode faith, justify sin, or accommodate the people of God to the spirit of the age share in Balaam's betrayal.
The orderly accountability of verse 12 — everything brought before Moses, the priest, and the congregation — models what the Church calls communio: no one acts alone, no one accounts to no one. In a culture of radical individualism, the image of Israel's warriors submitting their spoils to lawful oversight before God's representatives is a counter-cultural icon of ecclesial accountability. Practically, it invites examination: In my spiritual warfare — against my own vices, against cultural seductions to apostasy — am I fighting under authority, in community, and with accountability? Or am I a spiritual freelancer, answerable to no one?
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