Numbers 31:20

_AND PURIFY ALL YOUR RAIMENT, AND ALL THAT IS MADE OF SKINS, AND ALL WORK OF GOATS' HAIR, AND ALL THINGS MADE OF WOOD._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

19-24 The Israelites had to purify themselves according to the law, and to abide without the camp seven days, though they had not contracted any moral guilt, the war being just and lawful, and commanded by God. Thus God would preserve in their minds a dread and detestation of shedding blood. The spoil had been used by Midianites, and being now come into the possession of Israelites, it was fit that it should be purified....

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, some render the words, "purify yourselves" d, "together with the raiment", c. 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, c. 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 e includes vessels made of the horns, hoofs, and bones of

7. THE WAR AGAINST THE MIDIANITES CHAPTER 31 _ 1. The command to fight Midian (Numbers 31:1)_ 2. The war (Numbers 31:7) 3. The cleansing (Numbers 31:13) 4. The spoil taken (Numbers 31:25) 5. The oblation of the officers (Numbers 31:48) War is commanded next by the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, “Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites; afterward shalt thou be gathered to thy people.” This is, therefore, the last thing in the official life of Moses. This war against Midian had been com

THE PURIFICATION OF THE ISRAELITE ARMY AFTER THE SLAUGHTER. The purification of warriors after a battle, practised in antiquity as by savage peoples to-day, was due, not to any desire for physical cleanliness, but to the dread of the mystery involved in spilt blood and in dead bodies: those who had been in contact with such were sources of danger to the community until ritually purified. The rules observed are those prescribed in Numbers 19:11 f.; but in addition it is here enjoined that everything that can stand fire shall be purified by fire and by the water of separation (Numbers 19:9), whereas for everything likely to suffer from fire ordinary washing shall suffice....

_The purification necessary after contact with the dead_. Moses bids all who are defiled to remain outside the camp for seven days and perform the requisite ritual of purification....

PURIFY ALL YOUR RAIMENT, AND ALL THAT IS MADE OF SKINS— La Roque, says the author of the _Observations,_ mentions, as part of the common Arab's furniture, hair sacks, and trunks, and baskets covered with skin, to put up and carry their things in, which are kettles or pots, great wooden bowls, hand-mills, and pitchers; with these they content themselves, and they are all their furniture in common, or nearly so. I mention them distinctly, because this account seems to me to explain, in a clearer manner than commentators have done, (who are, indeed, in a manner silent upon the text,) the passages in Leviticus and Numbers which describe the furniture of the habitations of Israel in the wilderness. _Upon whatsoever any of them, when they are dead, doth fall, it shall be unclean;_ (Leviticus 11:32.) _whether it be any vessel of wood;_ their wooden bowls, that is, according t

B. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THEIR DISPOSAL vv. 13-20 TEXT Numbers 31:13. And Moses and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp. 14. And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. 15. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16. Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the Counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. 17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. 19. And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person,

31:20 purify. (h-22) See ch. 19.12....

WAR AGAINST MIDIAN This chapter contains an account of the fulfilment of the decree of extermination passed upon the Midianites as being the occasion of Israel's apostasy in the plains of Moab: see on Numbers 25:16....