Numbers 31:11-21

11 They looted and plundered everything and everyone - stuff and people and animals.

12 They took it all - captives and booty and plunder - back to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the company of Israel where they were camped on the Plains of Moab, at Jordan-Jericho.

13 Moses, Eleazar, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet the returning army outside the camp.

14 Moses was furious with the army officers - the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds - as they came back from the battlefield:

15 "What's this! You've let these women live!

16 They're the ones who, under Balaam's direction, seduced the People of Israel away from God in that mess at Peor, causing the plague that hit God's people.

17 Finish your job: kill all the boys. Kill every woman who has slept with a man.

18 The younger women who are virgins you can keep alive for yourselves.

19 "Now here's what you are to do: Pitch tents outside the camp. All who have killed anyone or touched a corpse must stay outside the camp for seven days. Purify yourselves and your captives on the third and seventh days.

20 Purify every piece of clothing and every utensil - everything made of leather, goat hair, or wood."

21 Eleazar the priest then spoke to the soldiers who had fought in the battle: "This is the ruling from the Revelation that God gave Moses:

Numbers 31:11-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 31

This chapter contains an order to make war upon Midian, which was accordingly done, Nu 31:1-12, but Moses was wroth, because they saved the women alive, who, through the counsel of Balaam, had been the cause of sin, and of the plague for it in Israel, and therefore orders them, and the male children, to be slain, Nu 31:13-18, and then directs to the purification of the soldiers, their captives and spoil, Nu 31:19-24, and by the command of God an account is taken of the prey, and a division of it made between the soldiers and the congregation, and out of each part a tribute is levied for the Lord, Nu 31:25-31 and the sum of the whole booty is given, Nu 31:32-35 and of the part which belonged to the soldiers, and of the tribute given to the Lord, Nu 31:36-41 and of the part which belonged to the children of Israel, Nu 31:42-47 and besides the above tribute to the Lord, the officers made a voluntary oblation out of their spoil, both by way of gratitude for sparing their lives, and to make atonement for their souls, Nu 31:48-54.