13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the company, go out to meet them, unto the outside of the camp, 14 and Moses is wroth against the inspectors of the force, chiefs of the thousands, and chiefs of the hundreds, who are coming in from the host of the battle. 15 And Moses saith unto them, 'Have ye kept alive every female? 16 lo, they—they have been to the sons of Israel, through the word of Balaam, to cause a trespass against Jehovah in the matter of Peor, and the plague is in the company of Jehovah. 17 'And now, slay ye every male among the infants, yea, every woman known of man by the lying of a male ye have slain; 18 and all the infants among the women, who have not known the lying of a male, ye have kept alive for yourselves.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Numbers 31:13-18
Commentary on Numbers 31:13-18
(Read Numbers 31:13-18)
The sword of war should spare women and children; but the sword of justice should know no distinction, but that of guilty or not guilty. This war was the execution of a righteous sentence upon a guilty nation, in which the women were the worst criminals. The female children were spared, who, being brought up among the Israelites, would not tempt them to idolatry. The whole history shows the hatefulness of sin, and the guilt of tempting others; it teaches us to avoid all occasions of evil, and to give no quarter to inward lusts. The women and children were not kept for sinful purposes, but for slaves, a custom every where practised in former times, as to captives. In the course of providence, when famine and plagues visit a nation for sin, children suffer in the common calamity. In this case parents are punished in their children; and for children dying before actual sin, full provision is made as to their eternal happiness, by the mercy of God in Christ.