Sozo, I’ll take a stab at answering your questions, if I may.
You ask,
Are these stories actual historical events that took place?Yes, they are. Though I can understand where there could be some confusion regarding this word ‘parable,’ especially when many people on the forum are reiterating the whole Bible is a parable, and then from Ray’s paper on Lazarus and the Rich Man, he writes this:
Jesus spoke in parables throughout His whole ministry. In Matthew chapter 13, we are given seven different parables. No parable is literal or historical. The second we make a parable literal, it ceases to be a parable. Jesus spoke ONLY in parables (not true life or historical stories) among the masses of people who followed Him wherever He went.I’m not trying to cause dissension in the ranks, but perhaps referring to the Scriptures as parables, especially in light of what Ray has written in the above quotation, is not the best way to describe the historical events recorded. I prefer to use a longer explanation myself: They are actual historical events that God planned and brought to fruition in order to provide examples to us of moral and spiritual truths. To each his own.
You ask,
did God actually command his people to do this?If by ‘this,’ you mean the killing of the Midianites, yes He did.
N
um 25:16ff The LORD said to Moses, “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.”Though there are commands given by God that could be argued by some to suggest genocide, especially in Deuteronomy, I would be very careful to suggest that the command in this instance was of a genocidal nature. In Joshua 13, in describing the land division given to the tribe of Rueben, there is a short reference to this incident in Numbers:
Jos 13:21ff —all the towns on the plateau and the entire realm of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled at Heshbon. Moses had defeated him and the Midianite chiefs, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—princes allied with Sihon—who lived in that country. In addition to those slain in battle, the Israelites had put to the sword Balaam son of Beor, who practiced divination.From the International Standard Bible Excyclopedia:
“…the biblical evidence suggests that the Midianites ranged over a large area, including northwest Arabia, southern Transjordan, the Arabah, portions of the Negeb, and possibly northern Sinai. Although northwest Arabia eventually became associated with the land of Midian, probably the range of the Midianites at one time was much larger…Further, some research has raised the possibility that Midian refers not to a land but to an amorphous league of tribes. This league dominated the people and areas of the southern Transjordan, Negeb, and portions of Arabia from the Late Bronze Age until approvimately the 11th century B.C., when other people gradually supplanted the league.” Joshua says that it was those five Midianite chiefs and their people that were allied with Sihon and who lived in that country that were the object of the Lord’s wrath, not the whole Midianite people in the entirety of the world. Based on the fact that the Midianites appear again in the time of the judges, we have to assume that when the Scriptures say in Numbers 31:7 that the Israelites “killed every man,” it means they killed every man belonging to that group of Midianites lead by the five chiefs of that area allied to Sihon, not every man who was a Midianite in the whole land, otherwise there would be no Midianites to mention in succeeding events.
You ask,
So did God command Israel to let them live because they were virgins (regardless of whether or not they were partaking in the pagan atrocities) or did Israel take these spoils of war for their on pleasure and then use God to justify their actions?I would think that if the Israelites took these spoils of war for their own pleasure and used God to justify their actions, God would have had something negative to say about it. On the contrary, we have this is Numbers 31:41.
Num 31:41 Moses gave the tribute to Eleazar the priest as the LORD's part, as the LORD commanded Moses.The spoils and plunder were divided between the soldiers and the community (verse 27), with a tribute part for the priests being set aside from the soldiers half (verse 28-29). The priests then brought that tribute “into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord” (Num 31:54).
And if you notice in Numbers 31:32ff, the women who had never slept with a man were considered part of the plunder.
Num 31:32ff The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.So I think it’s obvious that the Lord approved of what the Israelites did, and this is not just an instance of a group of people using their God as justification for their evil deeds.
The question then becomes, why were the virgin women spared? Was that a direct command from God?
Perhaps it was simply an act of mercy. I don't know for sure. Scripturally speaking, there is no evidence that God spoke any command of that nature to Moses to give to the Israelites. However, throughout this whole incident, there is also no evidence that Moses was acting in contradiction to what the Lord wanted him to do. Just because in this instance there is no “The Lord said to Moses” does not mean that Moses was commanding something outside the wishes of God.
In my mind, any question as to why would only be speculation, as the Scriptures do not come out and specifically say why. What I am more sure about is that the assertion that these women were raped or used as sexual objects is false.
A couple of verses after Moses commands the virgin women to be spared, he commands the following in accordance with the Law:
Num 31:19 All of you who have killed anyone or touched anyone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives.Remember, many of the men who had engaged in the fornication with the Midianite women were dead from the plague God had sent, so the remaining men more than likely had the fear of God put in them that if they did anything wrong, they would surely meet a similar fate. Surely they would have followed this above command as flawlessly as possible. Purifying, to me, does not equate to rape and wanton sexual gratification.
The fact that many men had just died as punishment from God for commiting adultery and fornication with these Midianite women, would cause the remaining men to think twice about doing anything abhorent or immoral with them.
Those are some of my thoughts on your questions. Hopefully they are of some help.
God bless, Eric