On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 (Last Updated on 3/5/2015), Yujin wrote,
Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, approached Moses, and they said to Moses, “Your servants have taken a census of men of war who are in our charge, and no man of us is missing (Numbers 31:48-49).
How often do you hear of men going off to fight in a war, where not one of those who goes gets killed? I would imagine very rare. But there is no indication that Israel vastly outnumbered the Midianites or that they even took them by surprise; however, this was a battle ordered by God's decree:
"The Lord said to Moses, “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them" (Numbers 25:16-17).
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites" (NUmbers 31:1-2).
This was a war that Midian could not win. They were outnumbered, but not by Israel, but by God. They were taken by surprise, but not by the crafty strategies of men, but in finding themselvese fighting against the living God. God would judge the Midianites through the agency of the army of Israel.
I believe that because Israel was faithful and because God was with them, they suffered no casualties. This was not like other wars, where every victory is a relative victory, where one sides' losses are simply less than the losses incurred by the other side. God gives a perfect victory, where there is not a single loss of life on the one side, while the other side is completely decimated. This was the kind of warfare and victory that God promised Israel when He commanded them to conquer the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. But it was because of their unfaithfulness that this promise was not realized:
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did” (Judges 2:20-22).
Friends, this was the experience of Israel under the Old Covenant. When they obeyed, God gave them victory, success, health and prosperity. When they disobeyed, God brought death, sickness, failure and loss. Most of Israel's history is filled with the latter, for they represent a picture of human depravity. The few occasions throughout their history, where they experienced the former, these were simply glimpses of God's grace.
Friends, even though we share the same nature as Israel in our sinful depravity, we live in a different dispensation, one dominated by grace and not law, inaugurated by the blood of Jesus through a New Covenant in place of the one instituted by Moses in the Old Covenant. For John writes, "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
Since we live under grace and not law, we no longer have to try to keep our side of the covenant with God. There is no "our side." It is simply what He has done, continues to do, and will fully accomplish for us in heaven. This is the beauty and wonder of God's grace in Christ Jesus:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Notice what God did for us. He made Jesus, who had no sin, to become the bearer of our sins. And as Jesus has taken our sins, He has also given us His righteousness, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him!
Now, while the full experience of victory, success, health, and prosperity, which accompanies the gift of Christ (cf. Romans 8:28-39), must wait till heaven, we are called to live our earthly days, even if those days are filled with hardship and suffering, motivated by this sure hope and the incomparable joy that awaits us. And we look to Jesus as our example:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:1-3).
On Saturday, March 5, 2011, Unmi wrote,
Much criticism is made of the events of Numbers 31 because it is taken out of the context of Numbers 25. How could God allow the killing of "innocent" women and children? The Moabite and Midianite women deceptively enticed the Israelite men into sexual sin and idol worship. The Moabite women invited the Israelites to their places of worship outside of the Israeli camp, however, the Midianites were far more audacious. Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, entices a Simeonite leader to bring her into the Israeli camp and defiles the Lord's Tabernacle by indulging in sexual activity inside the Tent of Meeting itself! Because of this perversion, the Lord tells Moses in Numbers 25:17-18 “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them. They treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the Peor incident involving their sister Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader..." Now, in Numbers 31:1-2, the Lord tells Moses that his last task before his death will be to “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites."
It is sad to see how corrupt an entire society can become. Remember, Moses went to Midian when he escaped from Pharoah. He lived among the Midianites for 40 years and married, Zipporah, a daughter of a Midianite Priest. How could an entire nation of people be lead astray to the point of God wanting to terminate them completely? Was there not one righteous person left?
Numbers 25 is just the begining of the adverse relationship Israel has with the Midianites. Because the Midianites were nomadic people, it appears that all the Midiantes were not killed in this incident. Later in Judges 6:1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help. (After the Law is given; in Leviticus 26, the LORD tells the Israelites their reward for obedience as well as the punishment for disobedience. The Lord tells them that if they fail to honor the Lord's commandments, that He will give them over to their enemies. Leviticus 26:16 even says that "You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.")
On Saturday, March 5, 2011, Stephen wrote,
Dear brothers and sisters!
The Lord instructed Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.” The Medianites are the ones who were enticed by the diviner, Balaam, to bring defilement to the Israelites. All the Medianite men were, of course, killed in the battle and later all the boys and the women who slept with men were killed as well later. Only the virgins were spared. The way God treated the enemies of His people has been a stumbling block to many people who claim that a loving God would not do such an atrocious act and that this part of the history of Israel was tempered with egotistic nationalism. Is that really true? Once again, the Lordship of our God and His Holiness are tainted with our own standard of judgment. The reason for many people not to be able to comprehend the love of God shown at the cross is that their sheer ignorance of God's Holiness which has NO place for SIN.
When they think about what sin is, the breaking of moral codes which are universally accepted by the members of our society comes to their minds. But we can see how drastically different God's standard is from ours from what we have read so far and will see it more in the upcoming readings. Brothers and Sisters! Let us pray to God to give us true understanding of our fallen estate 
when we read these parts of OT so that we may clearly see ourselves in dire need of His mercy.
In Christ,
Stephen
On Saturday, March 6, 2010, Chad wrote,
In this reading the Israelites conquer the Midianites and then the Reubenites and Gadites state their wishes to stay on the east side of the Jordan. A deal is struck that they could have that land but still had to fight on the other side of the Jordan.
God is reasonable. God’s plan was that the Israelites were to enter into the Promised Land but some of them wanted to stay on the other side of the Jordan. I think it was because they had been walking with the Lord that he gave them what they wanted. In Psalm 37:4, God promises, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”