The People go to war against the Midianites, because they were such a bad influence. They kill all the men, and bring the women and children back as prisoners. This really pisses off Moses, since they should have killed everyone except the virgin girls. So the Israelites kill all the boys, and “every woman that hath known man.”

And everyone that did all this killing at Moses’ request are unclean, and must stay outside camp for a week.

Of the 64,000 virgins captured, 32 went to Eleazar, 320 went to the general priest pool, and the rest were split evenly between the armies and the people who stayed home. Now we know how to handle war.

In the next chapter, we don’t get into details about splitting the booty, and counting the virgins. But we do get a story of some of the families willing to stop fighting because they are already in a good land. This also angers Moses, since the Lord promised them a different land, He’d be mad if they didn’t help fight for that land. So they promise to fight, if they can just build houses now and let their women and children (and cattle) stay behind. Moses thinks this is fine, but says three times (in one chapter) that if they don’t fight, they’d be in big trouble.

Next: Numbers 33-34.