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Please someone rationalise for me the appalling Old Testament Numbers Chapter 31?

Mr McDougall, perhaps you already have set your mind a certain way in regards to this topic, and want to help make others aware of what you perceive already, and not really wanting any explanation, other than the answer you have already in mind?

a) Do I have a right to my own opinion must I subjugate it to yours?
b) I simply refuse to believe that a benevolent God would demand the slaughter of men, women, little innocent boys, girls who failed the " virgin test?" found not to be virgins?
c) How could they know for sure thousands of years ago which female was a virgin or not?
d) Not all young girls are virgins and some of the older women might have been virgins?
e) Did they have a specialist gynecologist on call to check each female on the slaughter field?
f ) Then once they established which females were virgins they then follow God's order and murder the rest and take just the virgins to use them as just property to be used?
g) God gave us a mind to think things through intelligence to decide for ourselves what is true and what is false?
h) Thus I reject Numbers 31 as having anything to do with God Almighty!
i) Maybe Moses was to blame and ordered the slaughter himself I can accept that?
j) If indeed it was a pagan demigod that demanded this mindless slaughter of Numbers 31 I will also accept it as true?
k) If not then the God of Numbers 31 was an Evil psychopathic monster!
 
"Please someone rationalize for me the appalling Old Testament Numbers Chapter 31?"

Alan: Addressing the title Thread: which is asking a question. "One" of the reason is why a person ask a question is, because that person does not know the answer. And on a Thread like this, there are a "number of people" will "try" to attempt to answer your question. And most likely you will receive multitudes of different answers. You must realize you are speaking to group that call themselves "christians". And that word "Christian" have maybe over a 100 different meanings through out history with a multitude of definitions. And If ask what is a "christian" in todays market no telling how many answers you will get. The word Christian was coined when there was not even a "Dictionary". So you are free to give the word Christian your private definition as well.

So what am I saying, and how it is directed to this Title Thread"? No one can rationalize for you the things of God, even "Numbers chapter 31. Why, first you got to READ the BOOK! Then you will see This life and story is not about Mankind, it is About GOD, and man is just a piece of dirt and what God is doing with that piece of clay, and no more than a creation in process of the "Almighty GOD" and how HE is molding it, into His specifications And the ones He does not want,, He just cast it into waste furnace, every little nut bolt, washers, pin, screw. This story is about GOD and not you! It is made clear in the "Holy Scripture". You can believe it or not, It does not make any difference to God whether if you believe what He is written or how you feel. He is not going to share one tear over you. This is about God The Father and not you! So if He what's to cast you in to hell and the lake of FIRE, that is God's business and HE answers to NO MAN, you quoted this portion of Scripture. "For God so love the world" But you did not quote the BOOK! But I will finish the quote for you. "for God so love the world, that, He gave the world "a way" out, that if they believe His Word and listen to His SON, and do what he says and turn from their wicked ways, I will not condemn them and cast them into eternal fire where their worms will die not" But I will give them the Gift of eternal and call them the sons of God!"

So in essence, This story is about GOD, and He answers to NO man, and you are right what does He cares about a piece of dirt, in which He does not need. What does a "Infinite GOD' cares about "Finite creature He made out of dirt" and especially a creature that ignores His every command.

My rationalizing for you is to "read the whole BOOK" and ask GOD to open your eyes that you might see!

and i do not call my self a "Christian" for that I am not! for "I am, A part of "The People of "The WAY". What Jesus has called us! for He Said: I AM, "The WAY", The Truth" and "The Life".

(John 14).

The Way, the Truth, and the Life
5“Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

I say, follow the WORD, from "GENESIS clear across to the Last Chapter in "REVELATION" and take no short cuts! and doing so you will find your answers! It is The Revealing of Jesus Christ! Your choice. "You Have Been Served".
 
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You are not answering my question just like the others you redirected it elsewhere! so it is OK with you if god sends all those people of other religion to everlasting torment in a lake of fire. It is OK for God to kill people he does not like! What about? God so loved the world? As far as your googleplexian read what I wrote on a forum about that exact subject 6 years ago as follows?

]"What about crimes against God? I guess those don't matter? "] Your quote

D
o you really think that an infinite eternal Almighty Omniall Supreme being would be offended by mere puny tiny mortal men?

I am baffled just how could a mere mortal biological finite quantum particle commit a crime against an infinite All-Powerful Being it just makes no sense?

["These people preach other religions.... Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, ... and even other Jesus's... Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, (some Roman Catholics) etc..."] Your quote

That is a statement of your love and compassion for your fellow humans?

According to you, God is going to send all those other depraved people of religions that are not ChristianRreduced even further by you those who you define as Christian? to burn in a lake of fire in hell forever?

There is no such number as a googleplexian? There is a Googolplex which is the largest number used i9n science or physics

  • The link to prove I wrote Forums | Reasonable Faith

    Eternity in heaven, scary thought!

    Thinking about eternity after death can be very scary indeed, while we all want to live in peace and joy forever after we die; the very unimaginable idea of everlasting eternity is daunting to our mortal understanding. How would we occupy ourselves, for eternity, would one not become mind-blowingly board with our heavenly friends in a place of never-ending, eternal happiness and peace, without any challenges after billions of years would become unpleasant like eating barrels of ice-cream.

    Try to think the moment you die, you must go to a very new and strange place full of strangers no matter how pleasant they are. If God is going to wipe away every tear and supply all our needs, what then is left for us to do, in this heavenly realm of everlasting ecstatic bliss?

    Eternity is a very long time. In fact, if you were to measure eternity it would take you forever to complete your measurement. In fact, you would not be able to finish the measurement at all, because eternity has no end.
    In fact, eternity does not have a beginning either.

    Although of course, as we think we have explained so far, it would not actually take an eternity, it would just feel that way.
  • Eternity is incomprehensible. It boggles the mind how one could even start to explain to someone how utterly and totally mind-numbingly long eternity it simply goes on forever and ever, without ever ending.

    Let us try and comprehend a very much smaller unit or number which is the unimaginable huge single Googol year? Googol (Not Google) The number google it 10 to the power of a hundred or 10.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 I keyed it in myself hopefully all one hundred zero are included?

    One ‘googol’ year, is how much? Let us take a number say 150,000,000,000 or in words, a hundred and fifty billion years and then, compress or squeeze it a billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion more years into all that time into the thickness of a single dollar note times one billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion times over, and one-googol years would give you a pile of money that reaches one hundred quadrillions, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, light-years high. It would not even fit into a universe a billion, billion, billion, and times larger than our own immense universe.

    How small fleeting and insignificant we are?

    One googol year, that’s truly staggering, totally beyond anything, a human can comprehend

  • Nevertheless, it infinitely small when compared to eternity.

  • Take this example of eternity,


  • If a small bird was to sharpen its beak on the peak of Mount Everest, once every zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, google years When the Mount Everest is completely worn down, the first moment of eternity would not yet have occurred.

    Then try to imagine someone being tormented in hell for some finite sin in a like of fire for the same never-ending eternity.
    If a small bird was to sharpen its beak on the peak of Mount Everest, once every zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, google years When the Mount Everest is completely worn down, the first moment of eternity would not yet have occurred.





    Then try to imagine someone being tormented in hell for some finite sin in a like of fire for the same never-ending eternity.

    Regards

    Alan McDougall
You do not understand eternal is a state of being, not a length of time. Chronos time from a past thru a present into one of a number of possible futures is a function of the universe ..the creation..the eternal realm is it's source even in this life you ever experience NOW. It is always now the eternal realm has no linear chronos time.. it is ever NOW
 
a) Do I have a right to my own opinion must I subjugate it to yours?
b) I simply refuse to believe that a benevolent God would demand the slaughter of men, women, little innocent boys, girls who failed the " virgin test?" found not to be virgins?
c) How could they know for sure thousands of years ago which female was a virgin or not?
d) Not all young girls are virgins and some of the older women might have been virgins?
e) Did they have a specialist gynecologist on call to check each female on the slaughter field?
f ) Then once they established which females were virgins they then follow God's order and murder the rest and take just the virgins to use them as just property to be used?
g) God gave us a mind to think things through intelligence to decide for ourselves what is true and what is false?
h) Thus I reject Numbers 31 as having anything to do with God Almighty!
i) Maybe Moses was to blame and ordered the slaughter himself I can accept that?
j) If indeed it was a pagan demigod that demanded this mindless slaughter of Numbers 31 I will also accept it as true?
k) If not then the God of Numbers 31 was an Evil psychopathic monster!
Sin is not the cause of condemnation but the choice to be ones own god. When a person chooses to have nothing to do with God He gives you your own way in the after life...continuous. Existence without Him or whatever He provides. It is what existence is void of God. He himself grieves but the choice was yours
 
Where is God the Benevolent to be found in Numbers Chapter 31

(Reading this it is more like something Adolf Hitler would demand and did demand and not a God of Light and Love)


31 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.

3 And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of Midian.

4 Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.

5 So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.

6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.

7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.

8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.

9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.

10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.

11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.

12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.

13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.

14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. (Moses was very angry that they failed to kill them all?)

15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?


16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.

17 Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones (little boys), and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. (Kill all the little boys and every woman that had had sex with a man)

18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (How would they have known which that have not had sex with a man?)


19 And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.

20 And purify all your raiment, and all that is made of skins, and all work of goats' hair, and all things made of wood.

21 And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses;

22 Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,

23 Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water.

24 And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.

25 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

26 Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation:

27 And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation:

28 And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:

29 Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for an heave offering of the Lord.

30 And of the children of Israel's half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites, which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord.

31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.

32 And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep,

33 And threescore and twelve thousand beeves,

34 And threescore and one thousand asses,

35 And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.

36 And the half, which was the portion of them that went out to war, was in number three hundred thousand and seven and thirty thousand and five hundred sheep:

37 And the Lord'S tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and fifteen.

38 And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the Lord'S tribute was threescore and twelve.

39 And the asses were thirty thousand and five hundred; of which the Lord'S tribute was threescore and one.

40 And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the Lord'S tribute was thirty and two persons.

41 And Moses gave the tribute, which was the Lord'S heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the Lord commanded Moses.

42 And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided from the men that warred,

43 (Now the half that pertained unto the congregation was three hundred thousand and thirty thousand and seven thousand and five hundred sheep,

44 And thirty and six thousand beeves,

45 And thirty thousand asses and five hundred,

46 And sixteen thousand persons;)

47 Even of the children of Israel's half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord; as the Lord commanded Moses.

48 And the officers which were over thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, came near unto Moses:

49 And they said unto Moses, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh not one man of us.

50 We have therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord.

51 And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of them, even all wrought jewels.

52 And all the gold of the offering that they offered up to the Lord, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels.

53 (For the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself.)

54 And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord.
Fortunately you don't live in the Old Testament times, or maybe I should say unfortunately, because you would probably understand your issue better. You live in the New Testament times and under the New Covenant...I believe this is your issue, you act as if you don't understand the Covenant much less live under it! To understand it is to know that you can be saved by God's free grace and to understand salvation you would Never let your pride question God for Any reason!
 
a) Do I have a right to my own opinion must I subjugate it to yours?
b) I simply refuse to believe that a benevolent God would demand the slaughter of men, women, little innocent boys, girls who failed the " virgin test?" found not to be virgins?
c) How could they know for sure thousands of years ago which female was a virgin or not?
d) Not all young girls are virgins and some of the older women might have been virgins?
e) Did they have a specialist gynecologist on call to check each female on the slaughter field?
f ) Then once they established which females were virgins they then follow God's order and murder the rest and take just the virgins to use them as just property to be used?
g) God gave us a mind to think things through intelligence to decide for ourselves what is true and what is false?
h) Thus I reject Numbers 31 as having anything to do with God Almighty!
i) Maybe Moses was to blame and ordered the slaughter himself I can accept that?
j) If indeed it was a pagan demigod that demanded this mindless slaughter of Numbers 31 I will also accept it as true?
k) If not then the God of Numbers 31 was an Evil psychopathic monster!
I take it you think killing off all life on earth short of what was on the ark was also wrong of God? You think corruption should be allowed to continue until it comes to its absolute end? I have several flowering bushes, one called the "fresh breath of Spring", it was dying due to underground vole problems, 3/4th of it had already died. I cut it all down but I small sprout that was coming from the base. And what little of the root left that the vole hadnt eaten, allowed the little left to stay alive and grow. It is now bigger than it was when nearly the whole tree was going to die. If you dont cut out the bad, it will corrupt the good. Are you judge and jury over what happened with those women and children? I could tell you that those women and children for the most part were corrupted, but you falsely believe that some beings are innocent until proven guilty in the court of mankind. Shame on you for calling evil good and good evil. If you keep up this hatred of God, you will have to answer to Him. And if you have let yourself be corrupted by what God calls evil, He will cut you out of a life with Him, which will greatly shame you when you finally find out the truth, and admit you were wrong about Him. Have faith in the goodness of righteousness of God, and remember Prov 3:5-8

5Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your body
And refreshment to your bones.
 
Today we call that a crime against humanity ethnic cleansing!
And what makes you thing that what WE "CALL ANYTHING" today means SPIT in the absolute. We "CALL" the murder of Babies in their mother's wombs for their parents convenience, a moral, legal, and even praiseworthy activity.
 
There was no righteous judgement in Numbers 31 It was a command to murder rap rape and pillage, it is not righteous it is is more demonic. Face the reality of the words of this appaling chapter. What righteous judge demands the brutal murder of little innocent boys?

That YOUR personal concept of "Righteous Judgement" doesn't happen to mesh well with God's couldn't be less important. Everybody who died was under sentence of DEATH for their SIN anyway, and since punishment increases with offences, the cleansings were actually acts of mercy. Don't like that explanation??? Oh well.
 
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