Numbers 31:18

18 but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not had sexual relations.

Numbers 31:18 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 31:18

But all the women children
The females among the little ones:

that have not known a man by lying with him;
which might be pretty clear, and easily concluded, from their age:

keep for yourselves;
either to be handmaids to them, or to be married among them when grown up, and become proselytes, and initiated into their religion.

Numbers 31:18 In-Context

16 "Yet they are the ones who, at Balaam's advice, incited the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the Lord in the Peor incident, so that the plague came against the Lord's community.

17 So now, kill all the male children and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man,

18 but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not had sexual relations.

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

20 Also purify everything: garments, leather goods, things made of goat hair, and every article of wood."