The Defeat of the Five Kings of Midian

EA Baker
Dec 9, 2025
8 min read

Wars of the Bible

In the last post, we walked through the fall of King Og of Bashan, the last of the Rephaim. Rather than succumb to fear from this giant foe, the Israelites learned the lessons of the previous generation and put their faith in the lord. In doing so, God gave King Og and his army into their hand.

Now, we turn to their next engagement, which the Lord himself commands. God commands Moses to arm the Israelites and take vengeance on the Midianites because they had, along with the Moabites, intentionally set out to destroy the Israelites through their idolatrous religious practices. This event is quite brutal and will require some analysis and processing to understand why God commanded such destruction.

Vengeance on Midian

31 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” 3 So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the Lord's vengeance on Midian. 4 You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.” 5 So there were provided, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, together with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. 7 They warred against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every male. 8 They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. 9 And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones, and they took as plunder all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. 10 All their cities in the places where they lived, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, 11 and took all the spoil and all the plunder, both of man and of beast. 12 Then they brought the captives and the plunder and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the people of Israel, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

Numbers 31:1–12

People carry heavy sacks, overseen by armed guards with shields, in a desert landscape. Dust and smoke fill the air, creating a tense atmosphere. — James Tissot’s watercolor *The Women of Midian Led Captive by the Hebrews*, housed in the Jewish Museum in New York.

The Five Kings of Midian

As Israel prepared for its final campaign under Moses’ leadership, another formidable enemy stood before them—not giants of great stature, but rulers whose influence ran through the deserts and trade routes of the southern Transjordan. Numbers 31 names them plainly: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. Unlike Og of Bashan, whose reputation was tied to towering strength and imposing fortifications, the Midianite kings represented something more elusive: a network of tribal authority, spiritual influence, and cultural reach stretching from the Hejaz in northwest Arabia to the fringes of Moab and Edom.

Midian itself was not a centralized kingdom but a collection of clans and tribal chieftains. Their power lay not in walled cities but in mobility—control of caravan routes, metallurgical centers, grazing lands, and oases that dotted the arid regions east and southeast of the Jordan. Archaeologists often associate this world with Qurayyah Painted Ware, a distinctive pottery style found across the Arabah, southern Jordan, the eastern Sinai, and the Hejaz. Its distribution suggests a people both mobile and connected, trading widely and maintaining a recognizable cultural imprint across the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.

Scholars typically associate these Midianite groups with desert tribes listed in Egyptian records, including the Mdjn or Madiyana people mentioned in New Kingdom topographical lists. Some researchers also link the Midianites to the “Shasu” nomads, a broader group referenced in Egyptian inscriptions who roamed the same general regions. Although these external texts do not name the five kings directly, they confirm that peoples identifiable as Midianites were active, organized, and influential during the period the biblical narrative describes.

The battle itself—Israel’s divinely commanded assault against Midian—unfolded not around a single fortress like Edrei but across a network of encampments and clan centers. The biblical account presents it as total and decisive: the five kings were slain, their men destroyed, and their wealth and captives taken. Yet unlike Bashan, the Midianite world leaves little architectural footprint. Their semi-nomadic lifestyle, reliance on tents, and shifting settlement patterns make archaeological confirmation exceedingly difficult. Unlike Bashan’s stone cities, Midian left few structures that could bear signs of destruction.

Map displaying an attack route from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Features labels: main force, attack, Midianites, and key landmarks. — Map detailing the Israelite army's route to attack Midian.

Regarding direct historical evidence, scholars note that no inscriptions, stelae, or independent ancient records have yet been discovered that mention Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, or Reba by name. Nor has archaeology revealed a clear destruction layer attributable to a single sweeping campaign like that of Numbers 31. However, this absence is not unexpected. Small tribal polities seldom produced monumental inscriptions, and their encampments were unlikely to survive in the archaeological record. Desert warfare, moreover, rarely leaves the kinds of remains that preserved the ruins of great cities.

In terms of scholarly interpretation, views range widely. Some conservative historians argue that the cohesion of Midianite cultural artifacts and the consistency of the biblical geographic framework support a historical core behind the narrative. Others, especially those emphasizing source criticism, hold that Numbers 31 bears heavy theological and ritual shaping from later priestly editors and is best read as a moral or symbolic narrative rather than a straightforward chronicle. A middle view—common among many archaeologists—proposes that Israel and Midian did indeed clash during this period, but the specific details in Numbers 31 likely blend historical memory with theological interpretation.

In confronting the five kings of Midian, Israel was not facing a monumental city or a singular giant, but a web of tribal power woven through centuries of desert life. Their defeat, as described in Numbers 31, marks the end of a conflict not merely military but moral—rooted in the earlier seduction at Peor and the spiritual threats Midian posed to Israel’s covenant identity. Whether viewed through a historical, archaeological, or theological lens, the fall of the five kings marks a turning point, bringing Israel’s wilderness wars to a close and preparing them for the land ahead.

How to Come to Terms with this Event

When Numbers 31 records Israel’s divinely commanded war against Midian, the narrative can feel stark and unsettling: the five Midianite kings are slain, their warriors destroyed, and only the young girls are spared. Modern readers often wrestle with these verses, and for good reason. Yet one perspective, drawn from Christian ThinkTank’s detailed study on the Midianite narrative, argues that the severity of this judgment must be understood within the moral and historical framework of the ancient world.

The Midianites who fell under judgment were not simply neighboring tribes caught in geopolitical conflict. They represented a subculture within Midian that had actively sought to corrupt Israel from within—most notably in the episode at Peor, where Midianite and Moabite women deliberately enticed Israel into idolatry, sexual immorality, and betrayal of their covenant with God. The biblical text portrays these actions not as casual seduction, but as an intentional, malicious attempt to destroy Israel spiritually. In this framing, the crimes of the Midianites were seen as even more morally corrosive than the infamous sins of Sodom.

From this perspective, the war in Numbers 31 is not depicted as a campaign of territorial expansion or indiscriminate cruelty, but as an expression of measured divine justice. The men—and the complicit women who orchestrated Israel’s spiritual downfall—are judged for their active participation in the wrongdoing. The young girls, considered innocent of these crimes, are spared. In the harsh environment of ancient warfare, where non-combatants were rarely shown mercy, this distinction is presented not as brutality but as an act of restraint.

While the violence of the passage cannot be minimized, the narrative must be read through the lens of divine judgment rather than human vengeance. In this view, God’s command responds to a deep moral crisis: Midian’s corruption threatened to unravel Israel’s identity and compromise the people’s very existence as a covenant community. Purging this influence, though severe, is portrayed as necessary to preserve Israel from further moral and spiritual collapse.

This interpretation remains controversial, especially among scholars who approach the text through historical-critical or ethical lenses. Yet within this theological framework, the destruction of Midian is understood as part of a larger divine effort to protect Israel from forces that sought not only their physical destruction but their spiritual undoing. Here, the narrative shifts from ancient warfare to the cost of covenant faithfulness in a world marked by profound moral danger.

My Spiritual Takeaways

It took me a long time to realize that there’s a spiritual war for our souls that’s taking place every single day. There’s no escaping it because the world itself is a broken place, and there are destructive forces in it. Just as the Midianites sought to corrupt the Israelites, we too must remain vigilant against forces that would corrupt us.

Stay awake.

This reminds me of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, Peter, James, and John. He told them to stay awake while he prayed. Yet three times, Jesus returned to find them sleeping. While their failure to stay awake foreshadows their inability to stand with Jesus when he’s crucified, it also shows the weakness that we all have within us.

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Matthew 26:41

Be prepared.

Though in this instance, God is using the Israelites to cast judgment upon the Midianites, we must use this as a lesson to not become like the Midianites. They were a worldly and corrupt people who were determined to destroy God’s chosen people. Today, through the new covenant with Jesus, the world itself in some ways is like the Midianites.

You don’t have to look far to see in society the rejection or even the attack on Christianity and the corruption of so many foundational values that made the West great. While this may at times be disheartening, frustrating, and infuriating, we as Christians must remember that all have fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, it is on us to prepare ourselves for the return of Jesus and the final judgment of all of humanity.

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."