Numbers 31:3

3 Moshe said to the people, "Equip men from among yourselves for war. They are to go and fight Midyan, in order to carry out ADONAI's vengeance on Midyan.

Numbers 31:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 31:3

And Moses spake unto the people, saying
In obedience to the divine command; this must be supposed to be spoken to the heads or princes of the tribes:

arm some of yourselves unto the war:
not the whole body of the militia, 600,000 men and upwards, only some of them, and these choice and select men; and, according to the Jewish writers, good men, who, detesting the sins of lewdness and idolatry, would more strictly and severely avenge themselves on the Midianites for drawing their brethren into those sins, whereby they fell; and so Jarchi calls them righteous men:

[and] let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of
Midian:
what the Lord calls the vengeance of the Israelites, Moses calls the vengeance of the Lord, because they were the Lord's people, and his cause and theirs the same: and because the sins they were drawn into by the Midianites were not only against themselves, and to their prejudice, but against the Lord and to the dishonour of his name.

Numbers 31:3 In-Context

1 ADONAI said to Moshe,

2 "On behalf of the people of Isra'el, take vengeance on the Midyanim. After that, you will be gathered to your people."

3 Moshe said to the people, "Equip men from among yourselves for war. They are to go and fight Midyan, in order to carry out ADONAI's vengeance on Midyan.

4 You are to send to the war a thousand men from every one of Isra'el's tribes."

5 So out of the thousands of people in Isra'el, a thousand armed men from each tribe, 12,000 altogether, were mustered for war.