Question:
Please give some light on the following scriptures: Numbers 31:13-18; 2 Kings 10, the orders of Moses and cruelty to children.
Answer:
It will help us understand these if we consider the conditions that existed when Moses gave these orders. Midian had planned to destroy a nation. They had done this under the teaching of Balaam, who sold himself for hire. The nation of Midian itself had gotten to that place where it was tending to evil and only evil. Had it been allowed to continue, the children and all connected with it would have not only gone to destruction themselves but also brought others into the world doomed to destruction. And if they had been allowed to work their arts upon Israel unrebuked, Israel and Midian would have gone to utter destruction. In His wisdom, God saw that it was necessary to bring a check to that wickedness, and He did so summarily. Indeed, it was mercy to those who were slain, to be killed then in their innocency, many of them, rather than to go on in unmitigated, highhanded wickedness, bringing others into the same conditions. It is better sometimes to cut off an arm or a leg than to lose a life.
Moses did not act on his own initiative. God directed him what to do, and we can see the wisdom in the directions. We need not necessarily believe, however, that God was in all the work that the overzealous Jehu did, although the worshipers of Baal were doubtless worthy of all they received, for they, too, aimed at destruction. The very religion itself, Baal worship, would even put to death innocent children as a part of its religious service. Baal worship was destroying God’s people and all the other nations with which it was connected, and this summary punishment was brought to save nations from the sad consequences of the cruel and licentious Baal religion. It would have proved much more effective if Jehu himself had been faithful to God and had not turned to the worship of the calves.
