Numbers 31:3

3 So Moses said to the people, "Prepare some of your men for battle. They must go to war against Midian. They will carry out the LORD's plan to punish Midian.

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 The LORD spoke to Moses. He said,

2 "Pay the people of Midian back for what they did to the Israelites. After that, you will join the members of your family who have already died."

3 So Moses said to the people, "Prepare some of your men for battle. They must go to war against Midian. They will carry out the LORD's plan to punish Midian.

4 Send 1,000 men from each of the tribes of Israel into battle."

5 So Moses prepared 12,000 men for battle. There were 1,000 from each tribe. They came from the families of Israel.