13 Moses, Eleazar, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet the returning army outside the camp. 14 Moses was furious with the army officers - the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds - as they came back from the battlefield: 15 "What's this! You've let these women live! 16 They're the ones who, under Balaam's direction, seduced the People of Israel away from God in that mess at Peor, causing the plague that hit God's people. 17 Finish your job: kill all the boys. Kill every woman who has slept with a man. 18 The younger women who are virgins you can keep 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.