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Numbers 31:22

in Numbers 31

Only the gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead—

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

howbeit the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,

KJV

Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,

⋯

This verse in Numbers 31

Commentary

5 notes on this verse
Brass - Render copper. See Gen 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.

This site's exposition

abide without the camp seven days

on Numbers 31:19-25

Winning the battle exempts no one from the law of the dead. Every man who killed or touched a body waits outside seven days and is purified on the third day and the seventh with the water of separation, which is the red heifer ordinance of chapter 19 put to work. Eleazar rather than Moses states the law here, and he adds a rule chapter 19 did not give, that metal able to bear fire goes through fire and what cannot bear it goes through water. The captives are purified along with the soldiers.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead. These are excepted, and, though unclean, are not to be purified by washing, but in another way, by fire, as follows; all these metals were well known in those early times, and were made use of for instruments and vessels of various sorts.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

These things had been use by Midianites, and, having now come into the possession of Israelites, it was fit that they should be sanctified to the service of that holy nation and the honour of their holy God. To us now every thing is sanctified by the word and prayer, if we are sanctified by the Spirit, who is compared both to fire and water.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

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.

The words behind it

13 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • אַ֥ךְonly

    ʾakhH389 →161 times

  • אֶת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • הַזָּהָ֖בthe gold

    hazahavH2091 →389 times

  • וְאֶת־and <obj.>

    veetH853 →10935 times

  • הַכָּ֑סֶףthe silver

    hakasefH3701 →403 times

  • אֶֽת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • הַנְּחֹ֙שֶׁת֙the bronze

    hanechoshetH5178 →140 times

  • אֶת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • הַבַּרְזֶ֔לthe iron

    habarzelH1270 →

  • אֶֽת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • הַבְּדִ֖ילthe tin

    habedilH913 →

  • וְאֶת־and <obj.>

    veetH853 →10935 times

  • הָעֹפָֽרֶת׃the lead

    haofaretH5777 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

4 in all, six open

About Numbers

The Bronze Serpent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Bronze Serpent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Numbers: the study guide →Read Numbers 31 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Numbers 31 →