The
occasion of the war also is noticeable; it is undertaken not for
the acquisition of territory, nor with any other practical
object, but only to take vengeance on the Midianites for having
seduced some of the Israelites to uncleanness.
The elders of Midian, so the story goes, went to the soothsayer
Balaam to ask his advice as to what should be done against the
Israelite invaders. He suggested a means by which the edge of
the invasion might be broken; the Midianites should give their
daughters to the Israelites for wives, and so deprive the holy
people of their strength, the secret of which lay in their
isolation from other peoples. The Midianites took Balaam's advice
and succeeded in entangling many of the Israelites with the
charms of their women; in consequence of which Jehovah visited
the faithless people with a severe plague. The narrative of the
Priestly Code up to this point has to be pieced together from Numbers
xxxi. 8, 16 and Joshua xiii. 22, and from what is implied in the
sequel of it; at this point the portion of it begins which is
preserved to us (Numbers xxv. 6 seq.), and we are told how the
plague was ultimately stayed.
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