Matthew Poole and continuators on Numbers 25:17

17 * Vex the Midianites and smite them .

And why not the Moabites, who were as guilty, ver. 1. Answ. 1. Because God will reserve to himself a liberty of punishing or sparing, according to his own good pleasure. 2. God had a kindness for the Moabites for Lots sake, Deut. 2. 9. 3. God punished the Moabites in another manner, partly by his own immediate hand, whereby it is probable he cut off those Moabitish women that were guilty of this fact, partly by a particular and dreadful kind of excommunication, Deut. 23. 3. and partly by impunity, which in its consequences is commonly worse and more pernicious than any or all temporal punishments, which none that believes the Bible can deny. 4. It is probable the Midianites were most guilty, as in perswading Balak to send for Balaam, as may be gathered from Numb. 22. 4, 7. So in the reception of Balaam after Balak had dismissed him▪ Numb. 31. 8. and in further consultation with him, and in contriving the means for the executing of this wicked plot.

(i. e.) Kill them: in which words as there is a command to war against them, so there is a promise of success.

Marginal references: chap. 31. 2.