Numbers 31:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Numbers 31:8
And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
to smite with deadly intent · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
kings
מַלְכֵ֨יmal.Khei
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine plural construct
Midian
מִדְיָ֜ןmid.Yan
H4080
Midjan · proper noun, a place name
beside
עַל'al-
H5921
above · preposition
slain
חַלְלֵיהֶ֗םcha.lei.Hem
H2491
pierced (especially to death) · adjective, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Evi
אֱוִ֤י'e.Vi
H189
Evi · proper noun, a man's name
Rekem
רֶ֙קֶם֙re.kem
H7552
Rekem · proper noun, a man's name
Zur
צ֤וּרtzur
H6698
Tsur · proper noun, a man's name
Hur
חוּר֙chur
H2354
Chur · proper noun, a man's name
Reba
רֶ֔בַעRe.va'
H7254
Reba · proper noun, a man's name
five
חֲמֵ֖שֶׁתcha.Me.shet
H2568
five · cardinal number, both genders singular construct
kings
מַלְכֵ֣יmal.Khei
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine plural construct
Midian
מִדְיָ֑ןmid.Yan
H4080
Midjan · proper noun, a place name
Balaam
בִּלְעָ֣םbil.'Am
H1109
Bilam · proper noun, a man's name
son
בֶּןben-
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct
Beor
בְּע֔וֹרbe.'or
H1160
Beor · proper noun, a man's name
slew
הָרְג֖וּha.re.Gu
H2026
to smite with deadly intent · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
sword
בֶּחָֽרֶבbe.Cha.rev
H2719
drought · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine 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
Joshua 13:21-22 And all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, which reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses smote with the prin…
Numbers 25:15 And the name of the Midianitish woman that was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was head over a people, and of a chief house in Midi…
Jude 1:11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying…
Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblo…
Numbers 22:4 And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the f…
Numbers 22:10 And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying,
Numbers 24:25 And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.
Numbers 25:18 For they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a pri…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 31:8
the kings of Midian--so called, because each was possessed of absolute power within his own city or district; called also dukes or princes of Sihon (Jos 13:21), having been probably subject to that Amorite ruler, as it is not uncommon in the East to find a number of governors or pachas tributary to one great king.
Zur--father of Cozbi (Num 25:15).
Balaam also . . . they slew with the sword--This unprincipled man, on his dismissal from Balak, set out for his home in Mesopotamia (Num 24:25). But, either diverging from his way to tamper with the Midianites, he remained among them without proceeding farther, to incite them against Israel and to watch the effects of his wicked counsel; or, le…
And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain,.... Besides the males of the common people, they slew their kings, who were petty kings or princes, perhaps under the king of Moab, or had reassumed their titles and government after the death of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who, in his time, were called dukes of Sihon, Joshua 13:21, namely:
Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian; the Targum of Jonathan says of Zur, this is Balak, which is not probable; it is more likely, what Aben Ezra observes, that he was the father of Cosbi, whom Phinehas slew, Numbers 25:15.
Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword; so that he died no…
And 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…
The Church Fathers
The soothsayer Balaam set up a scandal for the people of Israel when he went to meet their warriors, not with men in armor but with women arrayed in all their finery. He hoped to make the men drop their arms for debauchery, change their triumph into disgrace, bring the avengers of guilt into guilt themselves and—to put it briefly—to profane all their holiness into depravity. As a result of it all, when Moses was meting out punishment, he sentenced Balaam thus: "Kill Balaam the soothsayer, because he set up a stumbling block before the children of Israel."
But the divine Scripture was also careful to record their names. "Evi," it says, "and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba." These are they who reign among the Midianites, whom everyone who serves God as a soldier ought to overcome and utterly to destroy. For Evi is interpreted "beastly" or "wild." And how will you be able to please Him who has approved you, if you do not cut off from yourself and utterly destroy beastly and wild ways? How will you be able to attain to the beatitude of the meek, unless first you slay Evi and hand over to death the wildness of all anger? I think that the divine Scripture did not narrate these names for the sake of history, but fitted them for the sake of causes and realities. For do you suppose there would have been anyone so foolish as to impose on his son the name "Beastly"? But I judge rather that the divine word looked to the instruction of souls, wishing to show us that we ought to make war against vices of this kind and to drive them from the dwellings of our flesh, to put these kings to flight from the kingdom of our body; which the Apostle more evidently indicates, saying: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." But do you wish to see that not only among the saints are names fitted to realities, but also among the Gentiles and Barbarians? Concerning the saints indeed it is known why Abram was called Abraham, and Sarah Sarra, and Jacob Israel. But let us show that this custom is held also among the Barbarians. Had not one of the sons of Israel received from his parents the name Joseph? But when he passed into Egypt and stood before Pharaoh, he changed his name and from Joseph surnamed him Zaphenath-paneah, which Pharaoh in his own tongue composed from the revelation of secrets or of dreams. And not only is a name fitted to Joseph from the reality before Pharaoh, but Daniel too in Babylon is named Belteshazzar, and Hananiah and Azariah and Mishael are called Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. You see, then, that both the names of Israelite men and even of barbarian men are fitted in the law not by chance, but for the sake of realities and causes. Therefore Moses called the king of the Midianites as he himself judged he should be called. "It is a beastly wildness," he says, "that reigns among the Midianites, and not that alone, but there is also among them another king by the name of Rekem, which in our tongue is…
Dictionary and topics
Balaam — Lord of the people; foreigner or glutton, as interpreted by others, the son of Beor, was a man of some rank among the Midianites (Num. 31:8; comp. 16). He resided at Pethor (Deut. 23:4), in…
Beor — A torch. (1.) The father of Bela, one of the kings of Edom (Gen. 36:32). (2.) The father of Balaam (Num. 22:5; 24:3, 15; 31:8). In 2 Pet. 2:15 he is called Bosor.
Evi — (desire), one of the five kings or princes of Midian slain by the Israelites. (Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:21)
Huppim — (protected), head of a Benjamite family (Genesis 46:21; 1 Chronicles 7:12) Hur (hole).
Hur — A hole, as of a viper, etc. (1.) A son of Caleb (1 Chr. 2:19, 50; 4:1, 4; comp. 2 Chr. 1:5). (2.) The husband of Miriam, Moses’ sister (Ex. 17:10-12). He was associated with Aaron in charge of the…
Midianite — An Arabian tribe descended from Midian. They inhabited principally the desert north of the peninsula of Arabia. The peninsula of Sinai was the pasture-ground for their flocks. They were virtually the…
Reba — Fourth, one of the Midianite chiefs slain by the Israelites in the wilderness (Num. 31:8; Josh. 13:21).
Rekem — Embroidered; variegated. (1.) One of the five Midianite kings whom the Israelites destroyed (Num. 31:8). (2.) One of the sons of Hebron (1 Chr. 2:43, 44). (3.) A town of Benjamin (Josh. 18:27).
Wars of the Lord, The Book of the — (Num. 21:14, 15), some unknown book so called (comp. Gen. 14:14-16; Ex. 17:8-16; Num. 14:40-45; 21:1-3, 21-25, 33-35; 31. The wars here recorded might be thus designated).
Zur — Rock. (1.) One of the five Midianite kings whom the Israelites defeated and put to death (Num. 31:8). (2.) A Benjamite (1 Chr. 8:30).
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…
Balaam son of Beor deserved to die because his counsel “caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor” (31:16). Balaam was punished for his villainous deeds (cp. 2 Pet 2:15; Jude 1:11).
Rashi on Numbers 31:8
חמשת מלכי מדין THE FIVE KINGS OF MIDIAN — But can I not see that Scripture has enumerated five; why, then, does it feel compelled to say that there were five? But it is to tell you that even as they had all been alike in the plot, so, too, they were treated alike in the punishment that befell them (cf. Rashi on Genesis 25:22, where, as here, the total of the names mentioned is stated) (Sifrei Bamidbar 157:5). — Balaam had gone there to receive the reward for the 24,000 whom he had made to fall of Israel through his counsel and now also he left Midian to meet Israel and gave them bad advice: viz., he said to them, “If, when you were 600,000 you were unable to overcome them, now you come to wa…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The
· Midianites destroyed and Balaam slain
— Midianites destroyed and Balaam slain
Evi · Prince of Midian, killed — Prince of Midian, killed
Homicide · Justifiable, described as: Killing enemies in battle — Justifiable, described as: Killing enemies in battle
Hur · 3. A king of Midian — 3. A king of Midian
Massacre · .Midianites — .Midianites
Midianites · Governed by kings — Governed by kings
Reba · Killed by the Israelites — Killed by the Israelites
Rekem · 1. A king of the Midianites, killed by the Israelites — 1. A king of the Midianites, killed by the Israelites
War · Of extermination — Of extermination
Zur · 1. A prince of Midian — 1. A prince of Midian
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).
