The War against Midian

Avenge the children of Israel on the Midianites, and afterwards you shall be gathered to your people—so God gives Moses his last assignment, tying it directly to the end of his life. Unlike Moab, Midian was not defending its own land: it entered someone else's war and chose the most corrosive weapon, seduction rather than arms. Moses does not delay, though the task means his death. A thousand men were levied from each tribe, twelve thousand in all, and Phinehas son of Elazar went with them carrying the sacred vessels and trumpets. Midian was defeated; its five kings fell, and Balaam son of Beor with them. The Torah then details the division of spoil between the fighters and the community, the portions for priests and Levites, the seven-day purification of the returning soldiers, and, for the first time, the laws of purging vessels taken from gentiles by fire and water. Finally the officers bring a gold offering, saying that not one man of ours is missing.

Here the chronologies differ not by years but by a century. Seder Olam Rabbah places the Exodus in 1313 BCE. The prevailing academic date is the thirteenth century, the time of Ramesses II: its firm anchor is the stele of Pharaoh Merneptah of 1208 BCE, the first mention of Israel outside the Tanakh, where Israel is already in Canaan. A minority of scholars holds to the fifteenth century, reckoning by the plain count of I Kings 6:1 — four hundred and eighty years from the Exodus to Solomon's Temple. The timeline shows the prevailing dating.