“Encamp outside of the camp for seven days. Whoever has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, you and your captives.
Parallel Translations
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“Encamp outside of the camp for seven days. Whoever has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, you and your captives.
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And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.
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And encamp ye without the camp seven days; whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, ye and your captives.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Numbers 31:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 5:2 “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and whoever is unclean by a corpse.
- Numbers 19:11-22 “He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with water on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean; but if he doesn’t purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. Whoever touches a dead person, the body of a man who has died, and doesn’t purify himself, defiles Yahweh’s tabernacle; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet on him. “This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. Every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean. “Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. “For the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering; and running water shall be poured on them in a vessel. A clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, on the persons who were there, and on him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave. The clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day. On the seventh day, he shall purify him. He shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening. But the man who shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh. The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean. It shall be a perpetual statute to them. He who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. “Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the soul that touches it shall be unclean until evening.”
- 1 Chronicles 22:8 But Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ‘You have shed blood abundantly, and have made great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Num 31:19 And do ye abide without the camp…
Num 31:19 And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify [both] yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.
Ver. 19. Whosoever hath killed any person.] War, though never so just, is the slaughter house of mankind, and the hell of this world. Homer brings in Mars, the god of battle, as most hated of Jupiter. Bellum per antlphrasin, quia minime bellum. "For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood." {Isa 9:5} What a strange man then was Pyrrhus, King of the Epirotes, of whom Justin reports, that he took more pleasure in fighting than in reigning! And what a hard heart had Hannibal, who, when he saw a pit full of man’s blood which he had spilt, cried out, O formosum spectaculum! O brave sight! So, O rem regiam, said Valesus, i.e., O kingly act! when he had slain three hundred persons. And what a strange hell-hag was that queen, who, when she saw some of her Protestant subjects lying dead and stripped upon the earth, cried out, The goodliest tapestry that ever she beheld! God, that he might teach his people not to have "feet swift to shed blood," tells them here of a ceremonial uncleanness, contracted by killing, though an enemy, devoted by him to destruction.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Seven days; according to the law, Lev 15:13; Num…
Seven days; according to the law, Lev 15:13; Num 19:11,12.
Purify with the water of sprinkling, Num 19:9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of…
And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of war, which went to the battle,.... To all the soldiers, officers, and common men:
this is the ordinance of the law, which the Lord commanded Moses; concerning the purification of unclean persons and things, hereby confirming what Moses had said.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Num 31:19-20. Abide without the camp seven days —…
Num 31:19-20. Abide without the camp seven days — According to the law, Lev 15:13. Purify yourselves — With the water of sprinkling, Num 19:9. Your raiment — Namely, your spoil and prey. All work — All which had contracted some ceremonial uncleanness, either from the dead bodies which wore them, or the tents or houses where they were, in which such dead bodies lay, or from the touch of the Israelitish soldiers, who were legally defiled by the slaughters they made.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Shall be. Hebrew, "purify yourselves and your captives on…
Shall be. Hebrew, "purify yourselves and your captives on the," &c. The girls, and all the booty, might probably be rendered unclean by the presence of a corpse, &c., chap xix. 14.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed…
abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person . . . purify both yourselves and your captives--Though the Israelites had taken the field in obedience to the command of God, they had become defiled by contact with the dead. A process of purification was to be undergone, as the law required (Lev 15:13; Num 19:9-12), and this purifying ceremony was extended to dress, houses, tents, to everything on which a dead body had lain, which had been touched by the blood-stained hands of the Israelitish warriors, or which had been the property of idolaters. This became a standing ordinance in all time coming (Lev 6:28; Lev 11:33; Lev 15:12).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE SOLDIERS, PRISONERS, AND SPOILS CEREMONIALLY CLEANSED, Num_31:19-24.
THE SOLDIERS, PRISONERS, AND SPOILS CEREMONIALLY CLEANSED, Num_31:19-24.
19. Without the camp seven days — The duration of pollution by the dead. Num_19:11, note.
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Any person — Hebrew, soul. Num_5:2, note.
Purify — With the water of separation. Captives were not rendered unclean by contact with the dead until they were incorporated into Israel as lawful possessions. Then they must be purified on the third and on the seventh day. Num_19:12, note.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 19. purify yourselves] The same word as in Num_8:21,…
19. purify yourselves] The same word as in Num_8:21, ‘unsin yourselves.’ Purification after battle is a custom found among various primitive tribes. The Hebrews had not yet received the higher teaching that only ‘the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man’ (Mar_7:15).
19–24. 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.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Do ye abide without the comp. In this case…
Do ye abide without the comp. In this case at any rate the law of lmArsmli 19:11 sq. was to be strictly enforced. And your captives, i.e., the women and children who were spared. No peculiar rites are here prescribed for the reception of these children of idolaters into the holy nation with which they were to be incorporated beyond the usual lustration with the water of separation. In after times they would have been baptized.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Purification of the Army
The Purification of the Army
v. 19. And do ye abide without the camp seven days, because they had touched the bodies of slain people and must be purified, Num 19:11; whosoever hath killed any person and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day, Num 19:9.
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v. 20. And purify all your raiment, and all that is made of skins, the vessels and the coverings made of skins, and all work of goats’ hair, garments woven out of this hair, and all things made of wood. Cf Numbers 19.
v. 21. And Eleazar, the priest, said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses, a further extension and application of the precepts of purification of Chapter 19;
v. 22. only the gold and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,
v. 23. everything that may abide the fire, all metals that could withstand the power of the fire as they were placed in it for purposes of purification, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean; nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation, in addition to the outward cleansing by fire, for the Levitical cleansing was an essential part of the ceremony; and all that abided not the fire, such as wood, cloth, and skins, ye shall make go through the water.
v. 24. And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, as was usually done in the ceremony of purification, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp. To this day God can bear no uncleanness, no sinfulness, and He is very earnestly concerned lest the believers become contaminated by contact with the world.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 31:19-24 Israelite warriors who had contact with corpses subjected…
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).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.