Numbers 31:17

31:17 Now therefore kill every boy, ¹  and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse with a man. ² 

Numbers 31:35

31:35 and 32,000 young women who had never had sexual intercourse with a man. ³ 

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¹ tn Heb “every male among the little ones.”

sn The command in holy war to kill women and children seems in modern times a terrible thing to do (and it was), and something they ought not to have done. But this criticism fails to understand the situation in the ancient world. The entire life of the ancient world was tribal warfare. God’s judgment is poured out on whole groups of people who act with moral abandonment and in sinful pursuits. See E. J. Young, My Servants, the Prophets, 24; and J. W. Wenham, The Enigma of Evil.

² tn Heb “every woman who has known [a] man by lying with a man.”

³ sn Here again we encounter one of the difficulties of the book, the use of the large numbers. Only twelve thousand soldiers fought the Midianites, but they brought back this amount of plunder, including 32,000 girls. Until a solution for numbers in the book can be found, or the current translation confirmed, one must remain cautious in interpretation.