How many midianites were there

When Israel took vengeance on Midian they sent 12, troops Numbers and prevailed:. Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war. We aren't told how numerous Midian was, only that the spoils includes 32, virgin women :. We know that "persons" here doesn't include the males because they were all killed, as reported in verse 7, and we know it doesn't include non-virgin women because they were all to be killed per v.

This isn't enough information to go on, but it sounds like either Israel was outnumbered or Midian has some unusual proportions of virgins to non-virgins and women to men. How numerous was the Midianite army? If large, why didn't Moshe send more soldiers he had them, per the recent census? Was there reason to believe that Midian would be an easy conquest and maybe that's why Midian sent seducers first?

A commander usually doesn't want to send unnecessary troops they get tired and become ritually impure , but he wants to send enough. What's going on in this case? It should be noted that the numbers given in the census at the beginning of Numbers are also disputed which would affect the numbers available for Midian's army here.

The most probable solution at this point is to understand that the numbers given here are mixtures. But at some point in the transmission of the text the two words were confused and added together to make thousand. If this solution is correct, the size of the Israelite group that left Egypt would have been about 20, Victor Harold Matthews, Mark W.

Chavalas and John H. Numbers 31 is said to be dependent on Deuteronomy 20, Judges 8, and 1 Samuel Yet, as Wenham and Ashley have so astutely pointed out, none of these arguments is conclusive; and in fact if one hypothesizes that the chapter derives from the Mosaic era, the three passages above derive from Numbers 25 and 31 sequentially and logically.

In a general sense Gray may have been correct in describing Numbers 31 as midrashic a literary tool for teaching certain lessons or principles in its literary structure, but that need not imply that it should be associated with midrashic exegesis of the late postexilic era second century B. The basis of the passage is material that should be taken as historically reliable, which was fashioned into a literary composition that had the function of providing case law precedents for future holy war endeavors for this generation that would enter the land and for generations to come.

Wenham and Ashley have provided answers to these and other questions regarding the content and character of the narrative. First, it is an overstatement of the data in the narrative to suggest that the report of vv. Obviously this was not the case since the Midianites are well attested in the biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts. Taken in the historical context of this being a divinely directed follow-up campaign after the sinful Baal Peor incident —18; —8 , this crusade was directed at the tribes or clans of Midianites who dwelled in the central and northern Transjordan highlands, in the vicinity of the lands of the Moabites, Ammonites, and Amorites.

The Midianites of the southern regions, such as those of Moses in-laws, were on better terms with the Israelites or were not involved on this occasion. Second, the large numbers of animals taken as spoils of war seem incredulous. The totals are much higher by comparison with those confiscated in the campaign of Thutmose III of Egypt ca. The Karnak temple account lists booty of 1, cattle, 2, goats, 20, sheep, and 2, slaves men, women, and children , along with a variety of physical objects such as gold bowls and ebony statues.

Wenham suggests an adjustment should be made to the numbers by analogy with the two census summaries of —46 and — Yet within the text there is consistency in the resultant numbers of animals and persons provided as gifts to the Lord and hence the priests on the basis of the ratio delineated in v.

Gideon sought to gain some security by his self-conceived sign with the fleece, and though God acquiesced to that request, He immediately countered by putting Gideon in an even more vulnerable position. If Gideon struggled to trust God with 32, Israelites against a Midianite force of , see Judges , how would he react when he had only a force of ?

In this light the words of God in Judges take on great significance. Gideon and his servant heard two enemy soldiers conversing on the outskirts of the Midianite camp. One soldier was relating a dream he had had to his friend. The writer probably included the reference to the apparently innumerable Midianite enemy Judges to emphasize the greatness of the victory God gave His people. Every dream was believed to be capable of interpretation, though this was, of course, the point where difficulties arose.

Yahweh obviously sent this dream. The tent was the home of all the Midianite, Amalekite, and Arabian Bedouins. The soldiers had obviously heard of Gideon and his plans to engage them in battle.

The irony is stunning: hearing the promise directly from the Lord did not convince Gideon, but hearing it from the Midianite soldier did. Upon hearing this interpretation Gideon received courage to believe that God would indeed grant him victory Judges Gideon is, significantly, the only judge to whom God speaks directly, though this privilege does not allay his faintheartedness.

This too had to have been from the Lord. The three companies of Israelites may not have completely encircled the enemy. Nevertheless the presence of three widely separated groups of soldiers gave the Midianites the impression that a very large number of Israelites was out there in the dark. The trumpets were rams horns that the Israelite soldiers tied around their necks.

The empty pitchers concealed and protected the torches until the soldiers broke them. The light from the torches combined with the noise of the breaking pitchers, the blowing of trumpets that made each soldier sound like a company commander, and the shouting of the soldiers.

All this led the sleepy Midianites to conclude that a vast host of Israelite warriors surrounded them. Then and only then was Gideon ready to lead Israel in battle. Furthermore all the struggles in the book result from a lack of faith. This struggle is most fully spelled out in the Gideon narrative, which accords with this event his religious struggle being put in the very center of the book.

This is not a good sign. Gideon commenced his "attack" at the beginning of the middle watch, which was evidently midnight. Lindsey, p. The movements of their own men milling around the camp as a result of the recent watch change would have disoriented them further. Perhaps the camels stampeded because of the torch fire and general confusion, giving the waking Midianites the impression that mounted soldiers had invaded their camp. Our website uses cookies to store user preferences.

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