The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Avenge the Israelites on the Midianites. The military campaign is described in brutal detail - everyone is killed except young girls. Then those soldiers return ritually unclean from the bloodshed and must purify themselves.
This passage troubles me deeply. But what I notice is that even in the violence, there's recognition that killing changes you. The soldiers are contaminated by it. They need purification. War is not celebratory. It's costly.
I'm reading this as an ethicist studying just war theory. There are rare moments, the theory says, when violence might be justified. But even then, it's not good. It's something you do when the alternative is worse, and you never celebrate it.
Moses seems to understand this. The war happens, but the aftermath is ritual and cleansing. You can't just go back to normal. Something happened to you. You participated in death.
I think of soldiers I've known. They don't like talking about what they did. Not because they're ashamed necessarily, but because violence changes you, marks you. The ritual of purification acknowledges that.
I'm also troubled by the specificity - young girls were spared, presumably as slaves or concubines. That's a horror I can't sanitize. But what I can say is that even scripture doesn't hide from the reality of what war entails. It doesn't pretend it's clean.
That's actually important. If we're going to wage war, we need to see what it really is, not sanitize it. We need rituals that acknowledge the cost.
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