Bible study · Numbers 31:1-54
Numbers 31: The war against Midian
Read Numbers 31:1-54 before you meet.
In a few lines
Moses called the war "the LORD’s vengeance on Midian" (31:3), and named what lay behind Peor: "the counsel of Balaam" (31:16). Whoever had killed or touched the slain was purified (31:19). And when the officers found "there lacks not one man of us" (31:49), their gold went in "for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD" (31:54), the words of the census law (Exodus 30:16).
The verse to carry
“They said to Moses, “Your servants have taken the sum of the men of war who are under our command, and there lacks not one man of us.”
Numbers 31:49
To talk about
1. The harm at Peor came "through the counsel of Balaam" (31:16), not through an army. Whose counsel shapes your choices most right now, and how do you test it?
2. The law for the dead in Numbers 19 applied even to men sent to war at the LORD's command: they stayed outside the camp seven days and were made clean before they came back in (31:19, 31:24). What do you make of it, that even they had to be made clean?
3. The officers counted and found "there lacks not one man of us" (31:49), and they brought an offering (31:50). When has God kept you, or people in your care, and how could you mark it?