Jesus says in Matthew 18:6-7 and Luke 17:1-3 that anyone who causes the children (of Israel) to sin should have a millstone tied around their neck and cast into the sea. This implies that tempting others to sin is worse than sinning against God or them.
Luke 17: (NLT) 1 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting! 2 It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. 3 So watch yourselves!
In Numbers chapters 22-24, a wicked prophet named Balaam was hired by the Moabites (and the Ammonites, as implied by Deuteronomy 23:3-4) to curse the Israelites. However, God is too powerful for any man to overrule, so Balaam could not curse whom God has blessed. Balaam ended up blessing the Israelites three times, and on the third time, he cursed Moab. This was all God’s doing, and Balaam was powerless to prevent it. The Moabite king was upset with Balaam and was willing to pay him very well. It must have been quite a substantial amount of money, considering that later on in Numbers 31, we find out that Balaam found a way around God’s protection and shared that information with Moab and Ammon. Balaam realized that the blessings and promises of God are conditional, so the Israelites had to keep God’s commands to inherit the blessings and stay protected. Breaking their covenant exposes them to the curse. Balaam then told the Moabites to use women (shrine prostitutes) to seduce the Israelite men into worshipping their sex idols at their temples. This would cause them to be under the curse (which we learn more about in Deuteronomy 28).
The Moabites and Ammonites did this, but they must have been warned not to use their women because of the condemnation associated with tempting God’s people. So they used Midianite women to do so in Numbers ch. 25. This strategy worked since it caused a plague to break out in the Israelite camp that killed 24,000 Israelites (Num 25:8-9). In Numbers 31, God sends the Israelites to destroy the Midianites as punishment for what they did. God also punishes Moabites and Ammonites by limiting their ability to intermarry with the Israelites. Deuteronomy 23:3-8 says that Moabites and Ammonites have to wait for 10 generations to intermarry with Israel because of their temptation with the Midianites. Meanwhile, Egypt and Edom have to wait for three generations since they did treat Israel well at one point, and only sinned against them later with slavery and war. Causing God’s people to sin is considered more grievous than sinning against them, so the Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites got a harsher punishment than Edom and Egypt.
This seems a little harsh, after all, Deuteronomy chapter 2 tells us that because Moab and Ammon are related to Abraham through his nephew Lot, they were also promised a part of the land in Canaan. God used them to defeat some of the Rephaites (Giants). Moab defeated the Emites, and Ammon defeated the Zamzummites. God gave the Israelites, Abrahamic relatives, victory over these giants. Israel’s brother nation, Edom (descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau), also conquered some of the Canaanites, known as the Horites. God instructed the Israelites not to fight against Ammon, Moab, or Edom, as those lands were their inheritance (Deut 2:5, 9, and 19). God gave Israel’s relatives favor in conquering the inhabitants of the land, and Moses most likely reiterated this in Deuteronomy 2 to encourage the Israelites to take the land. They were to trust that if God could give their heathen relatives victory over giants, then surely they, descendants of the promised seed of Abraham, Isaac, who passed the blessing to them through Jacob, their forefather, would have victory.
In Jewish culture, even today, a person born as a bastard or illegitimately (from adultery, incest, or from a harlot) would not have been circumcised or inherit anything from their Israelite father, so they are simply treated like a Gentile. This is explained in Deuteronomy 23:2, and this rule was applied to the Moabites and Ammonites for 10 generations in the next verse (Deuteronomy 23:3). Ironically, Moab and Ammon themselves were born of incest between Lot’s daughters and him (Genesis 19:30-38). Anyway, these restrictions on foreigners only apply to their men marrying Israelite women. Gentile women like Ruth (a Moabite) are not prohibited from marrying into the Israelite nation. Ruth is King David’s great-grandmother, and the book of Ruth is named after her. In addition, she is even in the lineage of Jesus (Matthew 1:5), all of this is true even though she is a Moabite. In addition, the restriction on promoting the welfare of Moab and Ammon in Deut 23:6 was not applied to individuals like Ruth or any Moabite or Ammonite man who was willing to live among them for 10 generations to merge with them, but rather to their nation-state and government.
Edom and Egypt have much lighter restrictions in Deuteronomy 23:7-8, because of their relationships with Israel in the past, Edom is Israel’s brother (Jacob and Esau were twins [Gen 25:24-26]), and Egypt allowed Joseph’s family to stay in Goshen despite the fact the Egyptian citizens hated foreigners (Genesis 43:32-34, Gen 46:31-34, Gen 47:1-12). Even though they sinned against Israel later by enslaving them (Egypt in Exodus 1), and resisted allowing them safe passage as they journeyed through the wilderness (Edom in Numbers 21:18-20), they didn’t cause Israel to sin as Moab and Ammon did by using Midianite prostitutes to seduce them into idolatry.
Back to the Midianites’ punishment, when the Israelites attacked Midian, they were instructed to take out everyone and only spare the virgin women. Why were the Midianites punished so harshly? Let’s examine how God dealt with the punishment of the nations at the time. In Deuteronomy 20:17, seven specific groups are named: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. In Deuteronomy 20:10-18, they were instructed not to make peace with the local Canaanite nations and to wipe them out, thereby avoiding the adoption of their practices.
Meanwhile, for non-Canaanite nations that were further away, they could offer peace and subjection, and the Israelites could only fight if that nation refused to submit. When fighting faraway nations, they were told to kill only the men, and they could keep the plunder and livestock, as well as the women and children as captives. However, they were to kill everyone among the local Canaanites (that didn’t flee and leave the land), both humans and livestock (the livestock was likely defiled in some way). God was explicitly judging the Canaanites through Israel’s actions, and those who didn’t flee from the land would have been executed. This condemnation of Canaan for their sins is why God gave Moab, Ammon, and Edom victory over the Canaanites.
The Midianites are not Canaanites, so usually any war with them should have allowed the women and children to be spared. However, that didn’t happen here, and they were treated like Canaanites. This whole battle only happened because Midian seduced Israel, and this was their punishment from God in response to what they did. God did not have Israel go after every Gentile nation, only the Canaanite ones. Remember, as stated above in Deuteronomy 2, nations related to Abraham, such as the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites, were off-limits because God had blessed them with their land allotments due to His promise to Abraham’s descendants. The Midianites were related to Abraham because Midian was a son of Abraham from his second wife Keturah (Gen 25:1-4). Moses’ first wife, Zipporah, was a Midianite. When he became a fugitive in Egypt, he fled to Midian, and it was the high priest Reuel/Jethro (Zipporah’s father) who took him in. This is why their punishment was limited, and a remnant (of virgin women) was allowed to survive.
The remnant of virgins was spared because they had not learned the Midianite pagan sex practices and were not involved with the seduction of Israel. The boys were likely killed because boys are more likely to want to avenge their families, especially if they don’t have their mothers. The boy’s mothers would help subdue them to this new culture by marrying the Israelite men and giving them stepfathers. However, mothers aren’t virgins so they would have been wiped out. This leaves prepubescent girls and maybe some virgin older women. The Midianites inherited the punishment of Canaan, but God had to spare some remnant of them for Abraham’s sake. Lastly, since Moses’ first wife was a Midianite and they took care of him while he was a fugitive from Egypt, we can infer that he didn’t say he hated Midianites; instead, God commanded this because of what they specifically did.
God was keeping His promise to Abraham while also executing judgment, because God must balance mercy and justice. We see that when He spares Noah’s family in the flood, He fulfills His promise to Adam to save humanity (Genesis 6-9). He rescues Lot from Sodom when Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned for their sins (Gen ch. 19). God prohibited Moses’ generation from entering the promised land because of their doubt and rebellion (Num 14:26-45), however, he preserves the next generation of the Israelites to keep his promise to Abraham that they will inherit the promised land. Furthermore, this event is targeted at a particular faction of Midianites that was involved with the temptation of Israel’s men, since there were plenty of Midianites left to challenge Israel in Judges chapters 6-7, which is many years later, so not all Midianites in the whole world were targeted, plenty of the men either escaped or there was a remnant of men that were living apart in a different location.
Essentially, the Midianites had the Canaanites’ condemnation transferred to them, but a remnant was spared for the sake of Abraham. We can also observe the concept of “transference of the punishment” with Achan’s family in Joshua 7. In Joshua 7:16-26, a man named Achan took some silver and gold from the plunder of the conquest of Jericho, despite being explicitly told not to, and as a result, he and his entire family were wiped out. He violated the command in Deut 7:25-26. This command was, “Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be destroyed, just like them…” This implies that God will view anyone who violates this command as a Canaanite, and that meant they will inherit the Canaanite punishment of having their whole family wiped out.
Jesus gives insight into this principle in action in the New Covenant in Revelation 2:20:
Rev 2:20 “But I have this complaint against you. You are permitting that woman—that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet—to lead my servants astray. She teaches them to commit sexual sin and to eat food offered to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to turn away from her immorality. 22 “Therefore, I will throw her on a bed of suffering,[c] and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.
Check out this insight into God’s judgment from Ezekiel 18:23-24. Ezekiel 18:23 says, “Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live. 24 However, if righteous people turn from their righteous behavior and start doing sinful things and acting like other sinners, should they be allowed to live? No, of course not! All their righteous acts will be forgotten, and they will die for their sins.”
God wants repentance from sin and wants to show mercy, but we must come to Him and ask for mercy, intending to do what is right by reconciling with both God and the humans whom we have offended. This is why, in Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus said that when an Israelite gave a sacrifice, they should apologize to and reconcile with anyone they had wronged. His point was that sacrifices shouldn’t be given coldly and ritualistically with no heart, and that people should be mindful of their sins and repent when offering sacrifices. We must acknowledge our sins, and repent (change our minds) to receive mercy (1 John 1:9). Hebrews 4:16 says to “come boldly to the throne of grace so that we may obtain mercy”. The boldness to come to God for mercy in our failure comes from the confidence, faith, and trust that he loves us. We shouldn’t hide in our inability, like Adam (Gen 3:8-11), but come boldly to ask for mercy, like David (2 Samuel 12:13-25, Ps 51:1-19).
The moral of the story is this: tempters like Satan get the worst punishment because they are like their father (Satan). We should avoid being the tempter in any situation, as there is a worse judgment for the tempter than for the tempted. If we do commit this sin there is still mercy because of what Jesus did for us.