19 You yourselves will have to keep outside the tent-circle for seven days, anyone of you who has put any person to death or come near a dead body; and on the third day and on the seventh day make yourselves and your prisoners clean. 20 And every bit of clothing, and anything made of leather or goats' hair or wood, you are to make clean.
21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had been to the fight, This is the rule of the law which the Lord has given to Moses: 22 But gold and silver and brass and iron and tin and lead, 23 And anything which may be heated, is to go through the fire and be made clean; but in addition it is to be put in the water of cleaning: and anything which may not go through the fire is to be put in the water. 24 And on the seventh day, after washing your clothing, you will be clean, and then you may come into the tent-circle.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Numbers 31:19-24
Commentary on Numbers 31:19-24
(Read Numbers 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.