Numbers 31:20

20 You must also purify every piece of clothing and everything made of leather, goats' hair, or wood."

Numbers 31:20 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 31:20

And purify all your raiment
By washing them; and this may intend not so much their own wearing apparel, as the raiment they took off of the dead bodies of the Midianites, since the person that touched a dead body was not obliged to wash his clothes, but the clean person that sprinkled the water of purification on him, ( Numbers 19:19 Numbers 19:21 ) , some render the words, "purify yourselves" ^F4, "together with the raiment" which seems to be the best version of them:

and all that is made of skins;
of any sort of creatures, as the covering of tents, shoes, bottles see ( Leviticus 11:32 )

and all work of goats' hair;
such as the covering of tents was also made of: and this, according to Jarchi and other Jewish writers ^F5 includes vessels made of the horns, hoofs, and bones of these creatures: and all things made of wood; as beds, cups, dishes all which might be purified by washing; see ( Leviticus 15:12 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 (wajxtt) "purgatote vos", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; Vid. L'Empereur, Not. ad Kimchii (odoiporia) , p. 130.
F5 Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Celim, c. 2. sect. 1.

Numbers 31:20 In-Context

18 but keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins.

19 Now all of you who have killed anyone or have touched a corpse must stay outside the camp for seven days. On the third day and on the seventh day purify yourselves and the women you have captured.

20 You must also purify every piece of clothing and everything made of leather, goats' hair, or wood."

21 Eleazar the priest said to the men who had returned from battle, "These are the regulations that the Lord has given to Moses.

22 Everything that will not burn, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, or lead, is to be purified by passing it through fire. Everything else is to be purified by the water for purification.