Numbers 31:19
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All of you who have killed a person or touched the dead are to remain outside the camp for seven days. On the third day and the seventh day you are to purify both yourselves and your captives.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Purification of the Warriors, the Prisoners, and the Booty. - Moses commanded the men of war to remain for seven days outside the camp of the congregation, to carry out upon the third and seventh day the legal purification of such persons and things as had been rendered unclean through contact with dead bodies. Every one who had slain a soul (person), or touched one who had been slain, was to be purified, whether he were a warrior or a prisoner. And so also were all the clothes, articles of leather, materials of goats' hair, and all wooden things.
Open source ↗In this chapter we have, I. The humble request of the tribes of Reuben and Gad for an inheritance on that side Jordan where Israel now lay encamped (Num 32:1-5). II. Moses's misinterpretation of their request (Num 32:6-15). III. Their explication of it, and stating it aright (Num 32:16-19). IV. The grant of their petition under the provisos and limitations which they themselves proposed (Num 32:20, etc.).
Open source ↗31:19-24 Israelite warriors who had contact with corpses subjected themselves and their equipment to routine, but important, purification rituals (see 5:1-4; 19:1-22).
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
“Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is defiled by a dead body.
but this word of the LORD came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and waged great wars. You are not to build a house for My Name because you have shed so much blood on the ground before Me.