Numbers 31:13-24

Moses Orders Further Execution and Purification

Numbers 31:13-24

Moses Orders Further Execution and Purification

13
Moshe, El'azar the cohen and all the community leaders went to meet them outside the camp.
14
But Moshe was angry with the army officers, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds coming in from the battlefield.​
15
Moshe asked them, "You let the women live?
16
Why, these are the ones who - because of Bil'am's advice -caused the people of Isra'el to rebel, breaking faith with ADONAI in the P'or incident, so that the plague broke out among ADONAI's community!​
17
Now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has ever slept with a man.​
18
But the young girls who have never slept with a man, keep alive for yourselves.
19
Pitch your tents outside the camp for seven days. Whoever has killed a person or touched the corpse of someone slain, purify yourselves on the third and seventh days, you and your captives.​
20
Also purify every garment, whether of skin or goat's hair, and everything made of wood."
21
El'azar the cohen said to the soldiers who had gone to the front, "This is the regulation from the Torah which ADONAI has ordered Moshe.
22
Even though gold, silver, brass, iron, tin and lead
23
can all withstand fire, so that you are indeed to purify everything made of these materials by having them pass through fire; nevertheless they must also be purified with the water for purification. Everything that can't withstand fire you are to have go through the water.​
24
On the seventh day you are to wash your clothes, and you will be clean; after that you may enter the camp."
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See also

Where else Scripture says this.

  • Numbers 25:1

    Isra'el stayed at Sheetim, and there the people began whoring with the women of Mo'av.
    from verse 16

  • Numbers 25:9

    nevertheless, 24,000 died in the plague.
    from verse 16

  • 2 Peter 2:15

    These people have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Bil‘am Ben-B‘or, who loved the wages of doing harm
    from verse 16

  • Revelation 2:14

    Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: you have some people who hold to the teaching of Bil‘am, who taught Balak to set a trap for the people of Isra’el, so that they would eat food that had been sacrificed to idols and commit sexual sin.
    from verse 16

  • Numbers 19:9

    A man who is clean is to collect the ashes of the heifer and store them outside the camp in a clean place. They are to be kept for the community of the people of Isra'el to prepare water for purification from sin.
    from verse 23

  • 1 Samuel 15:3

    Now go and attack 'Amalek, and completely destroy everything they have. Don't spare them, but kill men and women, children and babies, cows and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"
    from verse 15

  • Deuteronomy 4:3

    You saw with your own eyes what ADONAI did at Ba'al-P'or, that ADONAI destroyed from among you all the men who followed Ba'al-P'or;
    from verse 16

  • Joshua 22:17

    Is the guilt we incurred at P'or not enough for us? We haven't cleansed ourselves from it to this day, even though a plague came on the community of ADONAI.
    from verse 16

  • Numbers 24:14

    But now that I am going back to my own people, come, I will warn you what this people will do to your people in the acharit-hayamim.
    from verse 16

  • Numbers 19:17

    "For the unclean person they are to take some of the ashes of the animal burned up as a purification from sin and add them to fresh water in a container.
    from verse 23

  • Leviticus 11:25

    and whoever picks up any part of their carcass is to wash his clothes and be unclean until evening:
    from verse 24

  • Numbers 5:2

    "Order the people of Isra'el to expel from the camp everyone with tzara'at, everyone with a discharge and whoever is unclean because of touching a corpse.
    from verse 13

Where this happens

Destruction of the Midianites
Destruction of the Midianites View full PDF

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Study this passage

Commentary written on this passage, not on a single verse.

Historical interpretation

Fourteen Centuries of Reception

3 surviving comments on this passage. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.

3 quotes · AD 430–1781
Post-NiceneEarly MedievalMedieval
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Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.

AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceSERMON 291.4
The same angel, however, said to the Virgin Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you”; the one who will be in you is already with you. “Blessed are you among women.” Holy Scripture bears witness to the fact that in the proper usage of the Hebrew language all females are habitually called women; in case some of you perhaps may be astonished and scandalized, if you are not used to hearing the Scriptures. There’s a place in the Scriptures where the Lord says openly, “Set apart the women who have not known man.” In any case, call to mind those origins of ours; when Eve was made from the man’s side, what does Scripture say? “He removed a rib from him and built it into a woman.” She is already called a woman, taken indeed from the man but not yet united to the man. So now, when you hear from the angel, “Blessed are you among women,” take it in such a way, as if it were saying, in our usage, Blessed are you among females.
AD 1781Richard ChallonerMedieval
Of the children: Women and children, ordinarily speaking, were not to be killed in war, Deut. 20. 14. But the great Lord of life and death was pleased to order it otherwise in the present case, in detestation of the wickedness of this people, who by the counsel of Balaam, had sent their women among the Israelites on purpose to draw them from God.
AD 1781Richard ChallonerMedieval
The sin of Phogor: The sin committed in the worship of Beelphegor.
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