To: Greg or e who wrote (60664 ) 10/17/2014 5:08:38 PM From: 2MAR$ Read Replies (1) | Respond to Here is most hideous war crimes (Moses) in a Bible filled with them................ As with the story of Dinah , it is sexual misbehavior that spurs the ugliest, evilest biblical vengeance. At the start of the chapter, God tells Moses he must complete one more task before he dies: taking vengeance against the Midianites. Why? For the fairly piddling crime described in Chapter 25 . God was threatening punishment for Israelites who'd been whoring with Moabite women. At that very moment, an Israelite walked by the Tent of Meeting with his Midianite girlfriend. Phineas speared the couple to death. God, delighted by Phineas' zealotry, stops the plague he had sent against the Israelites as punishment for their lechery. Even so, 24,000 Israelites die. Moabite women, not the Midianite women, who did the dreadful whoring that provoked God's rage and the plague. Going after the Midianites to punish a Moabite crime is as nonsensical as the United States invading Iraq to teach al-Qaida a lesson. (Oh, wait. We did that.) not the war crime, but rather everyday policy.) The Israelites capture all the Midianite women and children and march them back to camp. Moses is furious that the Midianite women have been spared. (This chapter also fails to mention that Moses himself is married to a Midianite woman!
