Brides

At the beginning of Exodus, Pharaoh is spooked by Israel’s teeming growth. To keep them in check, he instructs the midwives to kill all Hebrew boys and spare the girls (Exodus 1:16). The girls will presumably be raised as Egyptians, become Egyptian wives and mothers, and Israel will be neutralized by being incorporated into Egypt. 

Like the original serpent in Eden, Pharaoh, the serpent of the Nile and the serpent of Goshen, tries to seize the bride for himself. This is the reason why Yahweh overthrows Pharaoh: Because he sheds innocent blood and tries to take the brides of Yahweh.

After Israel defeats Midian (Numbers 31), Moses adopts what appears to be a similar policy. He is angry at the captains of the army for sparing the women (v. 15) and instructs them to kill all the men, even infant men, as well as every women who “has known man by lying with a man” (v. 17). Only the virgins of Midian are spared, as brides for Israelite men.

Has Moses ended up adopting the very policy that led to Pharaoh’s downfall?

Despite the similarities, the two policies differ significantly. Moses has reason to instruct his captains to execute the non-virgins: “these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh” (Numbers 31:16). He is referring to the idolatrous orgy recounted in Numbers 25, when Midianite and Moabite women were sent into Israel’s camp to seduce Israelite men to idolatry and fornication. That led to a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites. The Midianite women were responsible, and so are executed not only for enticing Israel to idolatry (as the law requires, cf. Deuteronomy 13) but also for their role in the deaths of thousands. The Midianite boys and men who are killed were military enemies, or potential enemies, for Israel. 

There’s an eye-for-eye justice in these executions that is completely lacking in Pharaoh’s extermination program. Israel was a guest-people in Egypt, not a military opponent. There was no grounds for killing the boys, other than Pharaoh’s paranoia.

Moses’ policy regarding Midianite virgins is similar to Pharaoh’s. Both take women from one people and incorporate them into the genealogy of their own people. Though formally similar, they are substantively opposed in a radical way. Pharaoh is taking Israelite girls from the covenant people and grafting them into his increasingly murderous regime. Moses takes women from idolatrous Midian and incorporates them into Israel. 

Pharaoh and Moses are doing the same thing only if Egypt and Israel are essentially the same.