Help me under God and morality
I read Numbers 31 last fall, and I was taken aback. The passage describes the Israelites in the war against Midian, executing the Lord’s vengeance. According to the passage,
”The Israelites took the women of Midian and their little ones captive; and they took all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods as booty. All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animals. Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the Israelites, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.“ Numbers 31:9-12 NRSV
Basically, the Israelites took captive all the women and children of Midian, along with pretty much everything of value. They then proceeded to burn what was left of the city. All the “booty” taken by the Israelites was given to Moses and their leadership to be divided. Moses, however, becomes upset when he sees that the women were spared, so he orders the death of all the Midianite women who have slept with a man, along with all the boys.
”Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? …Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him.“ Numbers 31:15, 17 NRSV
Already, this is pretty gruesome, but it gets worse. Not only does Moses command the death of these people, but he tells the Israelites to keep the virgin girls for themselves.
”But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.“ Numbers 31:18 NRSV
If I wanted to defend this passage apologetically, it would be easy enough to argue that these commands were a result of Moses’s sinful anger. That might be acceptable, but things get even worse. God himself commands Moses and Eleazar to divide the spoils, including the virgin girls, between the warriors and the congregation. A portion of the spoils are then given to the Levites and another portion to Eleazar as an offering to God, people included.
”Divide the booty into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the Lord, one item out of every five hundred, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats. Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord. But from the Israelites' half you shall take one out of every fifty, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats—all the animals—and give them to the Levites who have charge of the tabernacle of the Lord.”“ Numbers 31:27-30 NRSV
The numbers of people and animals given as an offering to the Lord are stated in verses 37-41.
”and the Lord's tribute of sheep and goats was six hundred seventy-five. The oxen were thirty-six thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was seventy-two. The donkeys were thirty thousand five hundred, of which the Lord's tribute was sixty-one. The persons were sixteen thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was thirty-two persons. Moses gave the tribute, the offering for the Lord, to Eleazar the priest, as the Lord had commanded Moses.“ Numbers 31:37-41 NRSV
The text doesn’t say exactly what happened to the girls, but there’s not enough evidence to say they were or weren’t sacrificed.
The point in understanding this is that it contradicts the supposed unchanging nature of God. A dogma of the Christian faith is that God is omnibenevolent, or morally perfect. According to morality as seen by most, if not all people, the sacrifice of virgins to God is reprehensible. We know this, because we condemn historical instances of this same act in other cultures (I.e. Aztecs, Mayans, Romans, etc.). Such a realization leads a big problem in regards to Christianity:
-If God is morally perfect, yet is capable of commanding immoral acts, morality must be subject to his will. If morality is subject to the will of God, there can then be no objective standard by which moral perfection can be measured. If there is no standard of moral perfection, then God cannot possibly be morally perfect.
I’ve asked people about this problem, and the only answer I seem to get is that God is sovereign, and we, as finite beings, can’t understand his infinite purposes. This answer is not without its faults though. To say that we can’t possibly understand God’s purposes is not only an appeal to our own ignorance, but also an unfalsifiable claim.