Thirty-two thousand girls taken as war plunder. Not one name in the text. The Bible lists the cattle separately. The cattle get counted by species.
I named the song “Spare the Virgins” because that’s the actual command. That’s what Moses says in Numbers 31:18. I didn’t editorialize. I just quoted the book.
Why I Wrote It
Because I grew up in a tradition that told me this book was the source of all morality. And I kept finding chapters like this one. Chapters that don’t get preached. Chapters that the study Bible footnotes explain as “culturally contextualized” while the verses about homosexuality stay immortal and binding forever. funny how that works.
The selectivity is the theology. That’s the argument. They don’t get to keep the parts that control women and throw out the parts that are too embarrassing to defend in public.
Those thirty-two thousand girls didn’t get names. I can’t give them names. But I can make sure we don’t look away from the chapter that erased them. I can do that much.
That’s the song. That’s why it’s on the record.