Numbers 31:54
New International Version
Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

New Living Translation
So Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gifts from the generals and captains and brought the gold to the Tabernacle as a reminder to the LORD that the people of Israel belong to him.

English Standard Version
And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, as a memorial for the people of Israel before the LORD.

Berean Standard Bible
And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

King James Bible
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

New King James Version
And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of meeting as a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

New American Standard Bible
So Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it to the tent of meeting as a memorial for the sons of Israel before the LORD.

NASB 1995
So Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it to the tent of meeting as a memorial for the sons of Israel before the LORD.

NASB 1977
So Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it to the tent of meeting as a memorial for the sons of Israel before the LORD.

Legacy Standard Bible
So Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and they brought it to the tent of meeting as a memorial for the sons of Israel before Yahweh.

Amplified Bible
So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) as a memorial for the sons of Israel before the LORD.

Christian Standard Bible
Moses and the priest Eleazar received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

American Standard Version
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before Jehovah.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And Moshe and Eliazar the Priest took gold from the Heads of thousands and from the Heads of hundreds and they brought it to the Time Tabernacle as a memorial for the children of Israel before LORD JEHOVAH.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, and brought the vessels into the tabernacle of witness, a memorial of the children of Israel before the Lord.

Contemporary English Version
So Moses and Eleazar placed the gold in the LORD's sacred tent to remind Israel of what had happened.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And that which was received they brought into the tabernacle of the testimony, for a memorial of the children of Israel before the Lord.

English Revised Version
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Moses and the priest Eleazar took the gold from the commanders and brought it into the LORD's presence at the tent of meeting as a reminder to the Israelites.

Good News Translation
So Moses and Eleazar took the gold to the Tent, so that the LORD would protect the people of Israel.

International Standard Version
Moses and Eleazar took the gold from the captains of thousands and hundreds and brought it to the Tent of Meeting, to serve as a memorial to the Israelis in the LORD's presence.

JPS Tanakh 1917
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

Literal Standard Version
and Moses takes—Eleazar the priest also—the gold from the heads of the thousands and of the hundreds, and they bring it into the Tent of Meeting [as] a memorial for the sons of Israel before YHWH.

Majority Standard Bible
And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

New American Bible
So Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and put it in the tent of meeting as a reminder on behalf of the Israelites before the LORD.

NET Bible
So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

New Revised Standard Version
So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

New Heart English Bible
Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the Tent of Meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

Webster's Bible Translation
And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands, and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

World English Bible
Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the Tent of Meeting for a memorial for the children of Israel before Yahweh.

Young's Literal Translation
and Moses taketh -- Eleazar the priest also -- the gold from the heads of the thousands and of the hundreds, and they bring it in unto the tent of meeting -- a memorial for the sons of Israel before Jehovah.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Voluntary Offering
53Each of the soldiers had taken plunder for himself. 54And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.

Cross References
Exodus 28:12
Fasten both stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear their names on his two shoulders as a memorial before the LORD.

Exodus 30:16
Take the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the Tent of Meeting. It will serve as a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD to make atonement for your lives."


Treasury of Scripture

And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

a memorial

Numbers 16:40
To be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the LORD; that he be not as Korah, and as his company: as the LORD said to him by the hand of Moses.

Exodus 30:16
And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

Joshua 4:7
Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.

Jump to Previous
Accepted Captains Children Commanders Congregation Eleazar Elea'zar Heads Hundreds Israel Israelites Meeting Memorial Memory Priest Received Sign Tabernacle Tent Thousands
Jump to Next
Accepted Captains Children Commanders Congregation Eleazar Elea'zar Heads Hundreds Israel Israelites Meeting Memorial Memory Priest Received Sign Tabernacle Tent Thousands
Numbers 31
1. The Midianites are spoiled, and Balaam slain
13. Moses is angry with the officers, for saving the women alive
19. How the soldiers, with their captives and spoil, are to be purified
25. The proportion in which the prey is to be divided
48. The voluntary offering unto the treasure of the Lord














Verse 54. - Brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation. It is not said what was done with this enormous quantity of gold, which must have been a cause of anxiety as well as of pride to the priests. It may have formed a fund for the support of the tabernacle services during the long years of neglect which followed the conquest, or it may have been drawn upon for national purposes. A memorial. To bring them into favourable remembrance with the Lord. For this sense of זִכָּרון (Septuagint, μνημόσυνον) cf. Exodus 28:12, 29. NOTE ON THE EXTERMINATION OF THE MIDIANITES. The grave moral difficulty presented by the treatment of their enemies by the Israelites, under the sanction or even direct command of God, is here presented in its gravest form. It will be best first to state the proceedings in all their ugliness; then to reject the false excuses made for them; and lastly, to justify (if possible) the Divine sanction accorded to them.

I. That the Midianites had injured Israel is clear; as also that they had done so deliberately, craftily, and successfully, under the advice of Balaam. They had so acted as if e.g., a modern nation were to pour its opium into the ports of a dreaded neighbour in time of peace, not simply for the sake of gain (which is base enough), but with deliberate intent to ruin the morals and destroy the manhood of the nation. Such a course of action, if proved, would be held to justify any reprisals possible within the limits of legitimate war; Christian nations have avenged far less weighty injuries by bloody wars in this very century. Midian, therefore, was attacked by a detachment of the Israelites, and for some reason seems to have been unable either to fight or to fly. Thereupon all the men (i.e., all who bore arms) were slain; the towns and hamlets were destroyed; the women, children, and cattle driven off as booty. So far the Israelites had but followed the ordinary customs of war, with this great exception in their favour, that they offered (as is evident from the narrative) no violence to the women. Upon their return to the camp Moses was greatly displeased at the fact of the Midianitish women having been brought in, and gave orders that all the male children and all the women who were not virgins were to be slain. The inspection necessary to determine the latter point was left presumably to the soldiers. The Targum of Palestine indeed inserts a fable concerning some miraculous, or rather magical, test which was used to decide the question in each individual case. But this is simply a fable invented to avoid a disagreeable conclusion; both soldiers and captives were unclean, and were kept apart; and the narrative clearly implies that there was no communication between them and the people at large until long after the slaughter was over. To put the matter boldly, we have to face the fact that, under Moses' directions, 12,000 soldiers had to deal with perhaps 50,000 women, first by ascertaining that they were not virgins, and then by killing them in cold blood. It is a small additional horror that a multitude of infants must have perished directly or indirectly with their mothers.

II. It is commonly urged in vindication of this massacre that the war was God's war, and that God had a perfect right to exterminate a most guilty people. This is true in a sense. If God had been pleased to visit the Midianites with pestilence, famine, or hordes of savages worse than themselves, no one would have charged him with injustice. All who believe in an over-ruling Providence believe that in one way or other God has provided that great wickedness in a nation shall be greatly punished. But that is beside the question altogether; the difficulty is, not that the Midianites were exterminated, but that they were exterminated in an inhuman manner by the Israelites. If they had been so many swine the work would have been revolting; being men, women, and children, with all the ineffaceable beauty, interest, and hope of our common humanity upon them, the very soul sickens to think upon the cruel details of their slaughter. An ordinarily good man, sharing the feelings which do honour to the present century, would certainly have flung down his sword and braved all wrath human or Divine, rather than go on with so hateful a work; and there is not surely any Christian teacher who would not say that he acted quite rightly; if such orders proceeded from God's undoubted representative today, it would be necessary deliberately to disobey them. It is urged again that the question at issue really was, "whether an obscene and debasing idolatry should undermine the foundations of human society," or whether an awful judgment should at once stamp out the sinners, and brand the sin for ever. But no such question was at issue. There were obscene and debasing idolatries in abundance round about Israel, but no effort was made to exterminate them; the Moabites in particular seem to have been just as licentious as the Midianites at this time (see Numbers 25:1-3), and certainly were quite as idolatrous, and yet they were passed by. Indeed the argument shows an entire failure, so to speak, in moral perspective. Harlotry and idolatry are great sins, but there is no reason to believe that God deals with them otherwise than he does with other sins. It was no part of the Divine intention concerning Israel that he should go about as a knight-errant avenging "obscene idolatries." Many a nation just as immoral as Midian rose to greatness, and displayed some valuable virtues, and (it is to be presumed) did some good work in God's world in preparation for the fullness of time. Harlotry and idolatry prevail to a frightful extent in Great Britain; but any attempt to pursue them with pains and penalties would be scorned by the conscience of the nation as Pharisaical. The fact is (and it is so obvious that it ought not to have been overlooked) that Midian was overthrown, not because he was given over to an "obscene idolatry," wherein he was probably neither much better nor much worse than his neighbours; but because he had made an unprovoked, crafty, and successful attack upon God's people, and had brought thousands of them to a shameful death. The motive which prompted the attack upon them was not horror of their sins, nor fear of their contamination, but vengeance; Midian was smitten avowedly "to avenge the children of Israel" (verse 2) who had fallen through Baal-peor, and at the same time "to avenge the Lord" (verse 3), who had been obliged to slay his own people.

III. The true justification of these proceedings - which we should now call, and justly call, atrocities - divides itself into two parts. In the first place, we have to deal only with the fact that an expedition was sent by Divine command, to smite the Midianites. Now, this does indeed open up a very difficult moral question, but it does not involve any special difficulty of its own. It is certain that wars of revenge were freely sanctioned under the Old Testament dispensation (see on Exodus 17:14-16; 1 Samuel 15:2, 3). It is practically conceded that they are permitted by the New Testament dispensation. At any rate Christian nations habitually wage wars of revenge even against half-armed savages, and many of those who counsel or carry on such wars are men of really religious character. It is possible that if the principles of the New Testament take a deeper hold upon the national conscience, all such wars will be regarded as crimes. This means simply, that in regard to war the moral sentiment of religious people has changed, and is changing very materially from age to age. Even a bad man will shrink from doing today what a good man would have done without the least scruple some centuries ago; and (if the world last) a bad man will be able sincerely to denounce some centuries hence what a good man can bring himself to do with a clear conscience today. Now it has been pointed out again and again that when God assumed the Jews to be his peculiar people, he assumed them not only in the social and political stage, but in the moral stage also, which belonged to their place in the world and in history. Just as God adopted, as King of Israel, the social and political ideas which then prevailed, and made the best of them; in like manner he adopted the moral ideas then current, and made the best of them, so restraining them in one direction, and so enforcing them in another, and so bringing them all under the influence of religious sanctions, as to prepare the way for the bringing in of a higher morality. What God did for the Jews was not to teach them the precepts of a lofty and perfect morality, which was indeed only possible in connection with the revelation of his Son, but to teach them to act in all things from religious motives, and with direct reference to his good pleasure. Accordingly God himself, especially in the earlier part of their history as a nation, undertook to guide their vengeance, and taught them to look upon wars of vengeance (since their conscience freely sanctioned them) as waged for his honour and glory, not their own. If this seem to any one unworthy of the Divine Beings let him consider for a moment, that on no other condition was the Old Testament dispensation possible. If God was to be the Head of a nation among nations, he must regulate all its affairs, personal, social, and national. We escape the difficulty, and wage wars of vengeance, and commit other acts of doubtful morality, without compromising our religion, because our religion is strictly personal, and our wars are strictly national. But the Old Testament dispensation was emphatically temporal and national; all responsibility for all public acts devolved upon the King of Israel himself. It was absolutely necessary, then, either that God should reveal Christian morality without Christ (which is as though one should have heat without the sun, or a poem without a poet); or that he should sanction the morality then current in its best form, and teach men to walk bravely and devoutly according to the light of their own conscience. That light was dim enough in some ways, but it was slowly growing clearer through the gradual revelation which God made of himself; and even now it is growing clearer, and still while religion remains fundamentally the same, morality is distinctly advancing, and good people are learning to abhor today what they did in the faith and fear of God but yesterday. Take, e.g., that saying, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." For the Jew it meant that in waging wars of vengeance he fought as the Lord's soldier and not as in a private quarrel. For the Christian of the present day it means that revenge of private injuries is to be left altogether to the just judgment of the last day. To the Christian of some future age it will mean that all revenge for injuries and humiliations, private or public, individual or national, must be left to the justice of him who ordereth all things in this world or the world to come. Each has a different standard of morality; yet each, even in doing what another will abhor, may claim the Divine sanction, for each acts truly and religiously according to his lights. This being so, it is only necessary further to point out that the slaying of all the men whom they could get at was the ordinary custom of war in those days, when no distinction could be drawn between combatants and non-combatants. The practice of war in this respect is entirely determined by the sentiment of the age, and is always in the nature of a compromise between the desire to kill and the desire to spare. As these two desires can never be reconciled, they divide the field between them with a curious inconsistency. The first is satisfied by the ever-increasing destructiveness of war; the second is gratified by the alleviations which strict discipline and skilled assistance can procure for the vanquished and the wounded. Whether ancient or modern wars really left the larger tale of misery behind them is a matter of great doubt; but at any rate the custom of war sanctioned the slaughter of all the combatants, i.e., of all the men, at that time; and if war is to be waged at all, it must be allowed to follow the ordinary practice. In the second place, however, we have to deal with horrors of an exceptional character, in the subsequent slaughter of the women and boys. Now it is to be observed that the orders for this slaughter proceeded from Moses alone. According to the narrative of verse 13 sq., Moses went out of the camp, and on perceiving the state of the case, gave instructions at once while his anger was hot. It is possible that he sought for Divine guidance, but it does not appear that he did, but rather that he acted upon his own judgment, and under the ordinary guidance of his own conscience. We have not, therefore, to face the difficulty of a direct command from God, but only the difficulty of a holy man, full of heavenly wisdom, having ordered a butchery so abhorrent to our modern feelings. Let it then in all fairness be observed - . . .

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
And Moses
מֹשֶׁ֜ה (mō·šeh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 4872: Moses -- a great Israelite leader, prophet and lawgiver

and Eleazar
וְאֶלְעָזָ֤ר (wə·’el·‘ā·zār)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 499: Eleazar -- 'God has helped', six Israelites

the priest
הַכֹּהֵן֙ (hak·kō·hên)
Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 3548: Priest

received
וַיִּקַּ֨ח (way·yiq·qaḥ)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 3947: To take

the gold
הַזָּהָ֔ב (haz·zā·hāḇ)
Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2091: Gold, something gold-colored, as oil, a clear sky

from the commanders
שָׂרֵ֥י (śā·rê)
Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 8269: Chieftain, chief, ruler, official, captain, prince

of thousands
הָאֲלָפִ֖ים (hā·’ă·lā·p̄îm)
Article | Number - masculine plural
Strong's 505: A thousand

and of hundreds
וְהַמֵּא֑וֹת (wə·ham·mê·’ō·wṯ)
Conjunctive waw, Article | Number - feminine plural
Strong's 3967: A hundred

and brought
וַיָּבִ֤אוּ (way·yā·ḇi·’ū)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 935: To come in, come, go in, go

it into
אֶל־ (’el-)
Preposition
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

the Tent
אֹ֣הֶל (’ō·hel)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 168: A tent

of Meeting
מוֹעֵ֔ד (mō·w·‘êḏ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4150: Appointed time, place, or meeting

as a memorial
זִכָּר֥וֹן (zik·kā·rō·wn)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2146: Memorial, remembrance

for the Israelites
לִבְנֵֽי־ (liḇ·nê-)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 1121: A son

before
לִפְנֵ֥י (lip̄·nê)
Preposition-l | Noun - common plural construct
Strong's 6440: The face

the LORD.
יְהוָֽה׃ (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel


Links
Numbers 31:54 NIV
Numbers 31:54 NLT
Numbers 31:54 ESV
Numbers 31:54 NASB
Numbers 31:54 KJV

Numbers 31:54 BibleApps.com
Numbers 31:54 Biblia Paralela
Numbers 31:54 Chinese Bible
Numbers 31:54 French Bible
Numbers 31:54 Catholic Bible

OT Law: Numbers 31:54 Moses and Eleazar the priest took (Nu Num.)
Numbers 31:53
Top of Page
Top of Page