Pensée juive sur La Genèse 46:15

(2) Midrash Rabbah Numbers 21, explains that whoever treats the Midianites with mercy, will only wind up being abused by them, as happened to David, when the latter sent messengers to express his condolences at the death of their King Nachash. (ibid). (3) Apparently, G'd had not commanded an immediate campaign, rather at that point the injunction was not to befriend them or make peaceful overtures to them, al tatzor, means "do not besiege." Here too, only encirclement was the order of the day. Meanwhile the Jewish people were to be counted following the plague that had killed twenty four thousand of them. After that came the problem of the daughters of Tzelofchod and all that was entailed in that. The moral niveau of the Jewish people had not yet recovered to the point where they could have looked forward to a successful defence in the event of a Midianite attack. For that reason, G'ds advice was that they should stage a surprise attack, which would likely result in victory based on normal military considerations not involving hashgachah peratit, Divine intervention. The reason the campaign is referred to well in advance of its actual execution, is to include it with the report about the campaigns against Sichon and Og, which had been fought successfully by men who were morally entitled to wage war. The people were to appreciate that the men chosen for this campaign had to be such as would qualify on a moral basis. The report about distribution of the land of Israel to the men over twenty, plus those who had come out of Egypt, is, as Rashi says, to show that the dead inherited the living. In this way, both the people to be counted at this time as well as the ones who had left Egypt, would jointly share in inheriting the land. (4) Since the count of the warriors was to include only those who were free from sin, and who therefore qualified for entry into the land, Moses considered himself excluded. This is why he did not lead Israel into battle, personally. He had thought that this was a battle in which Joshua had to assume command, until G'd later repeated to him- after the section about the sacrifices and vows, "take revenge for Israel from the Midianites; after that you will die!" The emphasis in that verse is on the fact that he would die only after that had been accomplished, not prior to it. Moses, who had construed the meaning of the word tzaror as an infinitive, not as a directive, delegated Pinchas, who, since he had commenced the mitzvah was to be allowed to complete it. (5) G'd may not have commanded the females to be killed in order to give Moses a chance to still have a major share in carrying out that mitzvah personally. Moses was quite right in chiding the troops who allowed the very people to survive that had caused the plague to happen, and who already had the death of twenty four thousand Israelites on their conscience. Moses had not given such a command before, since he had taken it for granted that this part of the Midianite population would be killed by his warriors. He is not reported as including Pinchas in this reprimand, out of respect for the latter. On the other hand, Pinchas had not wanted to issue such instructions which, if wrong, could not have been corrected at a later date. The reason we have specific instructions for the temey-ey meytim, those who had defiled themselves through contact with corpses, and who have to remain apart from the main body of the people is, that this time only twelve thousand people were involved. Previously, when the whole army had been involved fighting Sichon or Og, and everyone had become defiled through contact with the dead, a separation would not have accomplished anything. Therefore, the legislation about ritual purification of vessels formerly owned by gentiles is in place here. (6+7) The repeated emphasis on the amount of the loot was to remind the people of the extent of the victory, coupled with the fact that they had not suffered any casualties at all. By dividing the loot into 5o% for those who had stayed behind in the camp, and appropriating 1/5ooth from the combatants, the temple treasury would in fact receive one tenth of one percent from the total loot, and the numbers would automatically be equal to the number of thousands listed for all the animals captured etc. The half was recorded to let us know the amount of the 10 per cent that Eleazar was entitled to as a tithe. Altogether, detailing the quantities which twelve thousand men had captured from a nation led by five kings, would remind the people of the impressive nature of their victory.