Or HaChaim on Numbers 31:2/אור החיים על במדבר ל״א:ב׳

1 נקם נקמת, "avenge the Israelites, etc." The plain meaning of the verse is that G'd delegated Moses to carry out this task. How is it possible then that he did not even accompany the soldiers into battle? Although I have explained previously that the vengeance Moses took consisted of telling the people to launch this campaign, the plain meaning of the verse cannot be ignored. Who allowed Moses to send Pinchas instead when G'd had told him to take vengeance? Furthermore, why did the Torah make Moses' death depended on the completion of this punitive expedition?

2The command: "take vengeance" is capable of two interpretations. 1) Moses was to prepare the campaign logistically and make all the preparations to ensure it would be militarily successful; 2) the actual battle which is the act of revenge. Moses understood correctly that what G'd wanted him to do was to prepare the groundwork to insure that the campaign would be successful. Moses reasoned that since G'd had not said to him הלחם במדין, "go into battle against Midian" -which would have been an unmistakable command- that what G'd wanted him to do was to plan the strategy. Moses also realised that he had to proceed with great astuteness as after all, in their previous encounter with the women of Midian the Israelites had become embroiled in the sin of גלוי עריות, some of them actively others only in their fantasies. While it was true that G'd had killed a substantial number of the active participants in that sin by the plague whereas others had been miraculously saved by Pinchas' deed, the accuser would certainly be at hand when the Israelites who had been steeped in sin were going to attack these people claiming moral superiority as their justification to kill all the male Midianites. It stood to reason that the Israelites were going to suffer a great number of casualties in such a campaign. There is some comparison here to the sin of the golden calf which resulted in Aaron being forbidden to enter the Holy of Holies in gold-trimmed garments so as not to endanger himself through arousing Satan and the attribute of Justice by reminding G'd of that sin (compare Rosh Hashanah 27). According to Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer chapter 4, G'd also commanded the angels described in Isaiah's vision (Isaiah 6,2) to cover their feet with their wings in order that G'd should not be reminded of the sin of the golden calf as the feet of these angels were like those of calves. If this was so during normal times, in times of war the chances are even greater that the "accusers" will remind G'd of sins the Israelites had committed in order to cause their deaths in battle. Sotah 44 affords us an insight into the types of relatively minor sins that are capable of causing a soldier going to war to become a casualty. If someone was aware that he had engaged in conversation between putting on the phylacteries on the arm and the phylacteries on the head, he was sent home before the army joined the enemy in battle so that he would not become a casualty on account of that sin. All the Israelites who had been guilty of entertaining sexual fantasies involving the Moabite or Midianite women were not fit to be part of the punitive expedition as they would have exposed themselves to Satan and his forces at such a time. Clearly, when G'd told Moses to exact vengeance from the Midianites, He expected Moses to have such considerations in mind.

3The Torah continues ואחר תאסף אל עמיך. It would appear that until the campaign had been successfully completed Moses could not die peacefully as his people had not been rehabilitated. It would not do for Moses to leave behind his people in need of spiritual rehabilitation. His soul would not be able to face the hereafter with peace of mind. According to the Kabbalists the place one occupies in the hereafter while awaiting final judgment is called עמיו, "his people." G'd examines every single one of our sins during that judgment. We know all this from Psalms 50,3 וסביביו נשערה מאד, "around Him it stormed fiercely." The cause that would prevent Moses from occupying this place called עמיו was the affair of Zimri ben Salu which had found Moses paralysed, inactive, as described by Bamidbar Rabbah 20,24. Moses' hands were weakened by Zimri's challenge to him. [Zimri had asked Moses why he could not sleep with a Midianite woman seeing that Moses himself had married a Midianite woman. Ed.] G'd was angry that Moses had not avenged Him until Pinchas had done so. As a result, G'd told Moses that he could not die peacefully until he had rehabilitated himself by organising the punitive expedition against Midian. Once Moses had taken care of this assignment he would be able to die without the need to face an accuser after his death. This was one of the great acts of kindness G'd performed for Moses.

4מאת המדינים. "from the Midianites." Why did the Torah write the word מאת instead of merely writing מהמדינים? Perhaps the Torah wanted to hint at an ex Midianite who was in his birthplace at that time, i.e. Bileam. As a result of Bileam's being in the land of Midian at the time of this expedition the Israelites killed him by the sword (compare 31,8). Perhaps the reason G'd was in a hurry for this campaign to be launched was precisely because He was aware that Bileam was in that land at that time. Sanhedrin 106 tells us that the reason Bileam had travelled to Midian which was a long way from his home in Petorah was in order to collect his reward for having given the advice to seduce the Israelites as a result of which 24.000 of them died. G'd prepared a net for him to fall into when He ordered this campaign at that time.