Numbers 31:24

And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

31:19-24 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Brass - Render copper. See Genesis 4:22 note. The verse is curious as illustrating the variety of metals in use at this early date for domestic purposes. All these metals were common in Egypt centuries before the date of the Exodus.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19-24. 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 (Le 15:13; Nu 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 (Le 6:28; 11:33; 15:12).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day,.... As the leper did, Leviticus 14:9,

and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp; into the camp of Israel, into the camp of the Levites, and into the camp of God, the tabernacle.

Geneva Study Bible

And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Numbers 31:24

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

To this end Eleazar, whose duty it was as high priest to see that the laws of purification were properly observed, issued fuller instructions with reference to the purification of the different articles, in accordance with the law in ch. 19. למּלחמה הבּאים, those who came to the war, i.e., who went into the battle (see at Numbers 10:9). "The ordinance of the law:" as in Numbers 19:2. The metal (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead), all that usually comes into the fire, i.e., that will bear the fire, was to be drawn through the fire, that it might become clean, and was then to be sprinkled with water of purification (Numbers 19:9); but everything that would not bear the fire was to be drawn through water. - The washing of clothes on the seventh day was according to the rule laid down in Numbers 19:19.