The War with Midian

Moses now sent an army against the land of Midian, for the reasons already given — twelve thousand men in all, an equal number taken from every tribe — and he put Phinehas in command. We mentioned this Phinehas a little earlier, as the man who had guarded the laws of the Hebrews and had punished Zimri when he broke them. The Midianites learned in advance that the Hebrews were coming and would soon be upon them, so they gathered their army, fortified the passes into their country, and waited there for the enemy. When the Hebrews arrived and battle was joined, an immense multitude of Midianites fell — so many that they could not be counted. Among them fell all their kings, five in number: Evi, Zur, Reba, Hur, and Rekem. Rekem had the same name as a city, the chief and capital of all Arabia, which the whole Arabian nation still calls Rekem, after the king who built it; the Greeks call it Petra. [a]

When the enemy had been routed, the Hebrews plundered their country and took a great deal of spoil, and they killed its inhabitants, the men together with the women. Only the virgins they let alone, as Moses had commanded Phinehas. Phinehas came back with an army that had suffered no harm and with a great deal of plunder: fifty-two thousand cattle, six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, sixty thousand donkeys, and an immense quantity of gold and silver household goods that the Midianites used in their homes — for they were so wealthy that they lived in great luxury. About thirty-two thousand virgins were also led away captive. Moses divided the spoil in two. He gave a fiftieth of one half to Eleazar and the priests, and a fiftieth of the other half to the Levites, and distributed the rest among the people. After this they lived happily, having gained an abundance of good things by their courage, with no misfortune to trouble them or to hinder their enjoyment of that happiness.

Moses had now grown old, and he appointed Joshua as his successor — both to receive directions from God as a prophet, and to command the army whenever they should need such a commander. This was done at God’s command, so that the care of the public would be entrusted to him. Joshua had been taught every kind of learning that concerned the laws and God himself, and Moses had been his teacher.

At this time the two tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh had a great abundance of cattle, as well as prosperity of every other kind. So they met together, came to Moses in a body, and begged him to give them as their own special portion the land of the Amorites, which they had taken by right of war, because it was fertile and good for grazing cattle. But Moses supposed that they were afraid to fight the Canaanites and had invented this concern for their cattle as a convenient excuse for avoiding that war. He called them outright cowards. He said they had only contrived a respectable excuse for their cowardice; that they wanted to live in luxury and ease while everyone else had toiled to win the very land they were asking for; and that they were unwilling to march along with the others and undergo the hard service still ahead — the service by which, under God’s promise, they were to cross the Jordan, overcome the enemies God had shown them, and so win their land. [e]

When these tribes saw that Moses was angry with them, and could not deny that he had good reason to be displeased at their request, they offered a defense. They said it was not out of fear of danger, or out of laziness, that they had made this request, but so that they could leave the plunder they had taken in safe places, and so be less encumbered and readier to face hardships and fight battles. They added that if he would grant them the land, they would build cities in which to keep their children, wives, and possessions safe, and then they would go along with the rest of the army. Moses was pleased with this answer. He called for Eleazar the high priest, Joshua, and the heads of the tribes, and allowed these tribes to possess the land of the Amorites — but on the condition that they join their kinsmen in the war until everything was settled. On that condition they took possession of the country. They built strong cities and put into them their children, their wives, and everything else they had that might hinder them in the labors of the marches to come.

Moses also now built ten of the forty-eight cities. Three of them he set apart for anyone who killed a person unintentionally and fled there. He fixed the length of such a man’s banishment as the lifetime of the high priest under whom the killing and the flight took place; after that high priest’s death he allowed the killer to return home. During his exile, the relatives of the one who was killed may by this law kill the manslayer if they catch him outside the bounds of the city he fled to — though this permission was not given to anyone else. The cities set apart for this refuge were Bezer, on the border of Arabia; Ramoth, in the land of Gilead; and Golan, in the land of Bashan. By Moses’ command, three more cities, taken from the cities of the Levites, were also to be allotted as homes for these fugitives — but not until the people were in possession of the land of Canaan. [f]

At this time the leading men of the tribe of Manasseh came to Moses and told him that a prominent man of their tribe named Zelophehad had died, leaving no sons, only daughters. They asked whether these daughters could inherit his land or not. He answered that if they married within their own tribe, they would take their estate with them; but if they gave themselves in marriage to men of another tribe, they must leave their inheritance in their father’s tribe. It was then that Moses decreed that every man’s inheritance should remain within his own tribe. [h]