We might be tempted to take offense that God would treat women differently than men regarding vows, granting men authority over women to annul their vows; but instead let’s seek to understand God. The first consideration would be, did He mean what I think He meant? In this case, it is difficult to miss the meaning because He is good enough to repeat it several times. It was almost as if He expected our incredulity! Since He was so clear about the regulation, let’s consider what He intended by it. To dismiss it as discriminatory against women is to consider our ways and thoughts higher than God’s ways and thoughts. Certainly I don’t claim to comprehend God’s higher ways and thoughts, but on contemplation I can perceive a couple of reasons that this rule makes sense.
Women were always under the protection of men in that culture, and from some of the cultural norms revealed in the books of the Law, we can understand that there was a good reason for that. Life could get difficult in a home where a headstrong daughter or wife had desires and ambitions contrary to those of her father and husband. God’s design for those relationships took care to avoid such strife by placing one party in submission to the other. Where they disagreed, He settled the argument by designating who settled the argument. A special problem might arise, however, when the party who was supposed to submit claimed that she couldn’t submit because a vow she had made to God would stand in the way. That could present a considerable source of strife in that home. His regulations about vows prevented that.
Another reason it might make sense that a women’s vows could be annulled by the man whose protection she enjoyed, was that women can sometimes be overcome by their fluctuating emotions, and do some rash things. I suppose there were many women who were grateful to be relieved of responsibility to fulfill rash vows.
So rather than take offense at God’s disparity in His treatment of women and men, let us seek to understand. Peaceful relations in the home were a higher priority to him than equal autonomy between men and women. Doesn’t that make sense? Our culture has taught us some different values. Are there adjustments you need to make in your values based on God’s revelation of His higher ways and thoughts?
God allowed them to take vengeance on Midian for the Baal worshiping incident that cost them 24,000 lives. He says that vengeance is His, and we are not to take vengeance, but in this case the vengeance He took was through the means of His people. How do we reconcile the fact that they killed every male, burned their cities, and killed even the women and “males among the little ones?” As God had pointed out to Abraham, the sin of these people had reached the point that He was ready to bring judgment on them, and the instrument He would use would be the Israelites. As He would point out repeatedly in Deuteronomy, if these people were allowed to remain, they would influence the Israelites and lead them astray; therefore they had to be totally removed. History shows that a few of them moved north to avoid the Israelite invasion and lived. Israel’s killing of every male, young and old, and the women, seems harsh, but it was a matter of their survival.
Rather than being offended by the killing as Satan would like us to be, let us adjust our vision to see how awful is that which is corrupted by sin. It is dangerous to us. The nature of sin is to grow, as we have seen happen leading up to Noah’s day and in the Canaanites. If we are offended at God’s way of dealing with sin, we have fallen into Satan’s deception. Instead, we must hate sin as God hates it. One of the reasons we should hate it is that it will be deadly to us if we don’t get rid of it. If instead we allow some to remain in our midst, in our selves, it will grow and bear fruit.
Notice the way God directed the distribution of the booty. After the soldiers shared half with the congregation and then gave from their portion to the Lord, they were so grateful for the miraculous preservation of their own lives that they were inspired to give yet more. How does that fit with your understanding of God’s desire for your giving?