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Question 4. Keeping virgin girls for yourselves...

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Orion

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In Numbers 31, there is a passage that told the Hebrew warriors to kill everyone, the males among the little ones and every woman who has known a man by lying with him, but the young girls who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves?

The connotation of this seems pretty obvious. :-?
 
Is that link speaking with authority, or was it speculation that these virgin girls were kept as slaves to help Israelite women? What happened to these virgin girls when they got older? Were they let go? Were they sold to others?

What of the young boys? Would they not have been able to serve a function as well, even in the role of slavery?

And when Moses is telling the MEN to kill the young boys and unclean women, isn't he still speaking to the men when he said for them to "keep the virgins for yourself"? There is nothing in there about then being told to bring them to your house as slaves to help the women folk.

I understand what the link is saying about the "sexual immorality", but I'm sure it would BE immoral to have relations with a woman who wasn't a virgin, who would have been the ones that these men were committing adultery with. For them to take virgins, they would be pure and clean in that respect. For us today, we may see it as immorality. But I wonder if THEY, . . .back then, saw the taking of virgins (to add to their household) as immoral. Remember, even wives weren't much more than property at that time either.
 
Orion said:
Is that link speaking with authority, or was it speculation that these virgin girls were kept as slaves to help Israelite women? What happened to these virgin girls when they got older? Were they let go? Were they sold to others?

What of the young boys? Would they not have been able to serve a function as well, even in the role of slavery?

And when Moses is telling the MEN to kill the young boys and unclean women, isn't he still speaking to the men when he said for them to "keep the virgins for yourself"? There is nothing in there about then being told to bring them to your house as slaves to help the women folk.

I understand what the link is saying about the "sexual immorality", but I'm sure it would BE immoral to have relations with a woman who wasn't a virgin, who would have been the ones that these men were committing adultery with. For them to take virgins, they would be pure and clean in that respect. For us today, we may see it as immorality. But I wonder if THEY, . . .back then, saw the taking of virgins (to add to their household) as immoral. Remember, even wives weren't much more than property at that time either.
Click to expand...

I do believe the article has a valid point. I think the reason the male children were not kept alive is because men carry on the family line and name and this was an extermination/retaliation on the Midianites. Carrying this principle over to the virgins that were kept, because of the intended extermination (the ending of the Midianite bloodline) and even in obedience to the Law of Moses (which had been given in their lifetime by God Himself - and no doubt strictly kept & administered by Moses himself) there were to be no sexual relations with the captive virgins, because God in the Law declared that they must not mingle with other peoples and ethnicities, they must keep their bloodline and inheritance clean. Inheritance regulation (which was dictated by marriages) was so strict that inheritances by intermarriage were forbidden even between the individual tribes of Israel (Numbers 36)! Side note: the story of Zelophehad's daughters which is referenced as the cause of the ordinance in Numbers 36 (refering to the earlier story of them approaching Moses in Numbers 27) shows a respect and honor for women, and shows exceptional bravery on their part. Wives were not just considered property. If you can work 14 years to marry one woman as Jacob (later renamed Israel) did for Rachel then you know he cherishes her. Infact Proverbs 18:22 says, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing." Even with Abraham, Sarah was more beloved to him, and Hagar was simply the maid servant. If it were not for Sarah's rash insistance, Abraham would never have had intercourse with her. Similarly these virgins were to be maid servants, not sexual property - which would violate more than one law of the Law of Moses. This interpretation makes contextual sense.

God Bless,

~Josh
 
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