The story returns to the military campaign. The Israelites attack the Midianites for revenge for the idolatry and the plague that followed. This chapter answers a few questions from before. First, Balaam (the prophetic guy who was offered money to curse the Israelites, but then blessed ghem) was no man of God. He was responsible in some way for their worship of Baal and ends up getting killed in the war.
It is a campaign of total destruction. All the Midianite men die, but the soldiers bring back women and children. Moses is mad because these are the same women that led Israel to Baal worship. Moses orders them and the Midianite male children killed, but virgin girls are kept alive and distributed among the people. As it turns out, there are 32,000 virgin girls.
The plunder is divided up among the soldiers and civilians, and a portion goes to Eleazor and the Levites, including the virgin girls.
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