Numbers 31-A Favorite of Bible Critics

Bible critics ignore the great amounts of material in the Bible about love, forgiveness, caring for the poor, etc. Instead they like to focus on God's judgment, to try to make God out to be cruel and barbarous. But sometimes they just make things up to try to discredit God.

One of their favorite passages to use for this purpose is Numbers 31:

14 And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
15 Moses said to them, "Have you let all the women live?
16 Behold, these caused the people of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the LORD in the matter of Pe'or, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
19 Encamp outside the camp seven days; whoever of you has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
What the Bible critics focus on here is the command of God through Moses to save the virgins "for yourselves." What they claim is that God here is commanding the Israelites to rape the virgins! Of course, this is a lie, because nothing is said about rape in this passage.

What the passage is actually talking about is allowing the virgins to live in order that they may become wives for the Israelites. We can see this in Deuteronomy 21, where the Israelites are told that they may take a wife from among their captives, but they must first allow her a one-month mourning period for her lost family, allowing her to carry out the traditions of her culture for mourning, even though those practices were apparently forbidden to Israelites (if Deut. 14:1 is talking about the same thing):

When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hands, and you take them captive, and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall put off her captive's garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. Then, if you have no delight in her, you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her. (Deut. 21:10-14)
As I say in my article on slavery and divorce, none of this is to be seen as ideal morality, but rather as God dealing with cultures as they existed at the time. But the charge about rape is clearly ludicrous. 1