the plains of Moab to despoil the Midianites; and, at the order of Moses, Phineas, the newly-fledged priest, and the assassinator of Zimri and his wife, also went forth to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow, in his hand. And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. And they slew with the sword five kings of Midian, also Balaam the son of Beor. Give no quarter-exterminate the whole male population of the Midianites-was the order of Moses' God, to which he cheerfully responded, by giving order to his army conformably. They warred as Moses' Lord commanded, says the text. In obedience to the aforesaid order of Moses' God, the Israelites took captive all the women and children of the slain husbands and fathers, pillaged from them all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, and carried them all back with them, "unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab." And the Israelites burnt all the cities of the Midianites wherein they dwelt, and they burnt all their stately public edifices" all their goodly castles," says the text. If this war had been a just war on the Midianites, which it was not, and had been waged and conducted by the most barbarous of the nations, or wandering tribes, what more could they have done to devastate that country, or in what manner could they have done more wickedly than did the Israelites? SEC. 6. Notwithstanding the great slaughter of the Midianites made by the Israelites, without having a man killed on their side, (see Num. XXXI: 49,) and the devastation made in the land of Midian by his soldiery, the great amount of plunder brought into camp with them, and the numbers of captives which they brought away to serve the Israelites -to pine and die in a foreign land, wearing the galling chains of slavery to their equals-" Moses was wroth" with his officers, because they had saved alive the "women" of their captives. Then this unsatiated. unregenerated, debauched moral deformity ordered his officers to slay these helpless female captives, and also to slay all the male children which they had brought into camp. The following is a copy of the order which Moses issued to his officers on that occasion: * * "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman, But all the women children, * keep alive for yourselves." (See Num. XXXI: * * 17, 18.) Every childless widow to be slaughtered, and every widowed mother and her minor male children to be massacred, and her virgin daughters to be saved alive for the use of the soldiers, the priests and Levites, and for the people of Israel. Is there a lineament of the mind of God, the universal Father, in this order? SEC. 7. On taking a minute and accurate view of Moses' account of their stealings from the Midianites, and of the number of captives, said to have been taken and brought into camp by the twelve thousand Israelites, and that, too, without the loss of a man on their side, the whole thing appears fabulous, as, undoubtedly, it is, in the main. The said prey brought into camp comprised six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep; seventy-two thousand beeves; sixty-one thousand asses; and thirty-two thousand women, not including those who were slaughtered by Moses' order, after they were brought into camp, but thirty-two thousand virgin girls. These captives were distributed, one-half to those who went to war, the other half to the congregation. Then Moses levied a tribute on each half; one five-hundredth part of the soldier's half for the Lord's benefit, which Eleazar, the High Priest, received; and one-fiftieth part of the people's half, which the Levites received. The Lord, or Eleazar, in his stead, received of virgins, for his part, thirtytwo; the Levites received for their use, three hundred and twenty of these young unsullied female captives. Then the above specified plunder was distributed in the same manner and proportions as were the young females. SEC. 8. In addition to the foregoing specified public plunder brought away, there was, according to the record, more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry, stolen from the Midianites by the officers and soldiers of the army-confiscated on individual responsibility-consisting of gold "chains, bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and tablets"— "sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels of gold” -which these robbers of the living and the dead, offered an oblation unto Moses' Lord for an atonement for the sins of their souls; and which, it is said, Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted and laid away in the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord. (See Num. XXXI: 50--54.) I forbear to comment further on this revealed, and religiously consecrated, diabolism. But, I would say to all who desire to read more of this piously approved, almost unparalleled, wickedness, turn to the thirty-first chapter of Numbers and there read at your leisure, and then ponder over what the chapter contains, and from it learn something of the characteristics of Moses' God, also of Moses himself. CHAPTER L. JOSHUA MOSES IS NOTIFIED OF HIS DEATH-HE APPOINTS JOSHUA HIS "And Moses did as the Lord commanded him: and he took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation. And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge; as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses." [Num. XXVII: 22, 23. "Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho, and behold the land of Canaan which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession; and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people." [Deut. XXXII: 49, 50. "And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. * * * * So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses." [Deut. XXXIV: 1. 5, 6, 9. SECTION 1. At the time that the above order came to Moses the Israelites were still encamped in the plains of Moab; and, according to the record, Moses had now arrived to the age of one hundred and twenty years. He now saw that in the course of nature, but a few days more, at most, would be allotted him to govern the people whom he had ruled, as with a rod of iron, for nearly forty years. Then it is said, in Num. xxxi: 2, that his Lord told him to be avenged on the Midianites, afterward he should be gathered unto his people-meaning, die, it is supposed. The work of avenging his disturbed emotions on the Midianites having been accomplished, even to the extirpation of all the inhabitants of the land, except those of undoubted unsullied female purity, and these he passed over and placed in the full power of masters to be used by them in that manner which their interests dictated, or their pas sional natures suggested. But how he should perpetuate his institutions, his laws, and his ordinances, and to establish precedents for the guidance of future generations, was now Moses' chief concern. SEC. 2. In view of his own condition, and all the surrounding circumstances, the appointing of a successor was the first thing to which he now directed his attention. Who should he appoint was the next question to be decided on by him. But, according to Moses' record, Num. xxvII: 18 -21, his Lord came very opportunely in this emergency, and told him to appoint Joshua, who, from the first, had been his fighting general, and to install him into that authoritative position, and do it before the congregation, and by imposing ceremonies. And the record says Moses did as his Lord commanded, and appointed his chief military officer, to be his successor. This was in perfect keeping with all of Moses' prior assumptions over the people's rights and prerogatives. It was the people's divine prerogative to select for themselves one who should rule over them after Moses' death; but in that matter Moses had forestalled and bound the people to obey, after his death, the man of his selection and appointment. The power and act of appointing a chief Executive is the key-stone in every arch of governmental despotism. This is fully understood by all well-informed religious and civil rulers. Moses established the precedent which made secure the arch of despotic authority in both religious and civil rulers in Jewry and in, so called, Christendom. |