Numbers 31:19-24

19 All of you who have killed a person or touched the dead are to remain outside the camp for seven days. On the third day and the seventh day you are to purify both yourselves and your captives.

20 And purify every garment and leather good, everything made of goat’s hair, and every article of wood.”

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded Moses:

22 Only the gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead—

23 everything that can withstand the fire—must be put through the fire, and it will be clean. But it must still be purified with the water of purification. And everything that cannot withstand the fire must pass through the water.

24 On the seventh day you are to wash your clothes, and you will be clean. After that you may enter the camp.”

Numbers 31:19-24 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.