And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| warred | וַֽיִּצְבְּאוּ֙ vai.yitz.be.'U | H6633 | to mass (an army or servants) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural |
| Midianites | מִדְיָ֔ן mid.Yan | H4080 | Midjan · proper noun, a place name |
| LORD | יְהוָ֖ה Yah.weh | H3068 | Jehovah · proper noun, a title |
| commanded | צִוָּ֥ה tzi.Vah | H6680 | (intensively) to constitute · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
| Moses | מֹשֶׁ֑ה mo.Sheh | H4872 | Mosheh · proper noun, a man's name |
| slew | וַיַּֽהַרְג֖וּ vai.ya.har.Gu | H2026 | to smite with deadly intent · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural |
| males | זָכָֽר za.Khar | H2145 | properly · adjective, masculine singular absolute |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
they slew all the males--This was in accordance with a divine order in all such cases (Deu 20:13). But the destruction appears to have been only partial--limited to those who were in the neighborhood of the Hebrew camp and who had been accomplices in the villainous plot of Baal-peor (Num 25:1-3), while a large portion of the Midianites were absent on their pastoral wanderings or had saved themselves by flight. (Compare Jdg 6:1).
And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses,.... Whether the Midianites came out against them with an army, and there was a pitched battle between them, is not certain; however the Israelites committed acts of hostility upon them, by entering their cities, plundering their houses, and slaying the inhabitants of them; the Targum of Jonathan is,"they warred against Midian, and surrounded it in the three corners of it, as the Lord commanded Moses;''for, as Maimonides (b) observes from tradition,"when they besiege a city to take it, they do not surround it in the four corners of it, but in the three corners of it, and leave a place to flee out, that everyone that would mi…
Read the whole note in the consoleAnd they warred against the Midianites. It was a signal example of obedience, that 12,000 men did not refuse to engage in a war which was full of danger, when it was reasonable for them to object that it was not right for them to be exposed to butchery, as it were, whilst the people sat idly in the camp, who by their great numbers and with little trouble would have routed and overcome the enemy. It was therefore no common proof of piety, that they obeyed God's command, and sought for no pretext to cover their cowardice. God, too, shewed by the result that He did not rashly expose His servants to danger; for it is in His power to rescue those whom He takes under His protection, from a hundred…
Read the whole note in the consoleTherefore twelve thousand engage against the Midianites, and "they slay," it says, "all their males; and their kings and Balaam, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword together with the rest of their wounded." That which in the passages above we were inquiring — how it could be proved from the Scriptures that the women of the Midianites, who deceived the sons of Israel into fornicating, had been suborned by the counsel of Balaam — this present passage of Scripture evidently shows, saying that he was slain by the sword as the author of the scandal that was brought upon the sons of Israel. And it is said of him in what follows still more evidently in this way: "and Moses said to them: why have you preserved every woman alive? For it is they who, according to the word of Balaam, made the sons of Israel apostates." And the kings of the Midianites are also slain, and those who were formerly conquered by the women now, expiation being had and repentance performed, conquer even the kings. From this let us understand how much conversion to God avails, how much the amendment of sins profits. Every male, all the kings of the Midianites, are conquered and destroyed by those who through the correction of the Lord and through the repentance for their deeds were corrected and amended. Five kings of the Midianites, therefore, are reported to have been overcome by the Israelite soldiers.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Of the campaign itself, the results are all that is recorded. No doubt it terminated with a great battle, in which the Midianites were taken unawares and completely routed. As it was a war of vengeance of Jehovah, the victors slew all the males, i.e., all the adult males, as the sequel shows, without quarter; and "upon those that were slain," i.e., in addition to them, the five Midianitsh kings and Balaam, who first advised the Midianites, according to Num 31:16, to tempt the Israelites to idolatry. The five kings were chiefs of the larger or more powerful of the Midianitish tribes, as Zur is expressly said to have been in Num 25:15. In Jos 13:21 they are called "vassals of Sihon," because S…
The Israelites killed all of the Midianite men in the particular groups they attacked from their camp in the plains of Moab (31:12), not all of the people who were part of the larger Midianite confederation (cp. Judg 6–8). The number of animals and virgins mentioned in Num 31:32-35 indicates that the 12,000 Hebrews fought a sizable enemy force.
אתם ואת פינחס [MOSES SENT THEM … TO THE WAR], THEM AND PHINEAS — The repetition of the word אתם, “them”, in association with Phineas’ name tells us that Phineas was regarded as equal to all of them together. — But why did Phineas go and Eleazar did not go? The Holy One, blessed be He, said, “He who made a beginning with this meritorious work, in that he slew Kozbi the daughter of Zur (who was a Midianitess), let him complete it”. — Another explanation why Phineas and not Eleazar went is that he went to take vengeance for Joseph, his mother’s ancestor, as it is said, (Genesis 37:36) “And the Midianites sold him [unto Egypt]”. And from where do we know that Phineas’ mother was of the family of…
Read the whole note in the consoleHenry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
