Numbers 31:23

23 everything that will go through the fire--you will pass through the fire, and it will be clean, and only in waters of impurity will it be purified. Whatever does not go into the fire you will pass through the waters.

Numbers 31:23 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 31:23

Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go
through the fire
Either through the smoke of the fire, and so be purified by suffumigation; or be put into the fire itself, where though they might be melted as the above things, yet not consumed as raiment, and vessels of skins, goats' hair, and wood, would be:

and it shall be clean;
accounted so:

nevertheless, it shall be purified with the water of separation;
with the water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer burnt, and sprinkled on it; see ( Numbers 19:9 )

and all that abideth not the fire;
without being consumed, as whatsoever is of wood

ye shall make go through the water;
dip them in it, and rinse them there with a quantity sufficient; which the Targum of Jonathan says is forty seahs of water.

Numbers 31:23 In-Context

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of the battle who came from the war, "This [is] the decree of the law that Yahweh commanded Moses.

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

23 everything that will go through the fire--you will pass through the fire, and it will be clean, and only in waters of impurity will it be purified. Whatever does not go into the fire you will pass through the waters.

24 And you will wash your garments on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you will come into the camp."

25 Yahweh said to Moses, saying,