Numbers 31:19

Summary

Numbers 31:19 instructs those returning from battle to remain outside the camp for seven days. Anyone who has killed a person or touched a slain body must purify themselves on the third and seventh days, a requirement extending to both the soldiers and their captives.

Key words

• chanu ("encamp", H2583) — qal imperative, plural: a direct command addressed to "you all," setting the seven-day encampment outside the camp.
• horeg ("[one who] has killed", H2026) — qal participle: describes a person characterized by the ongoing state of "having killed," rather than a single completed action, marking a category of person affected by the rule.
• noge'a ("[one who] has touched", H5060) — qal participle, parallel in form to horeg: identifies a second category, those who touched a chalal ("slain", H2491A), extending the purification requirement beyond killers to anyone in contact with the dead.
• titchate'u ("you will purify yourselves", H2398) — hithpael imperfect, plural: the reflexive stem indicates the subjects act upon themselves; the imperfect aspect marks this as an action to be carried out (future/ongoing), occurring specifically "on the third day and on the seventh day."
• shevikhem ("your captive[s]", H7628A + H9026) — construct noun with 2nd person plural suffix: ties the captives grammatically to "you," indicating the purification instruction applies jointly to both groups named in the final clause, atem ("you", H0859D) u-shevikhem ("and your captives").

What the text says

The verse opens with the independent pronoun atem ("you", H0859D) followed by the imperative chanu ("encamp", H2583), placing emphasis on the addressees before the command itself — a common construction for marking a shift in subject or emphasis. The phrase michutz lammachaneh ("from outside of the camp") uses the construct noun chutz ("outside", H2351) to specify location, followed by the duration shiv'at yamim ("seven of days", H7651+H3117), where shiv'at is in construct form governing yamim.

The two participles horeg ("[one who] has killed", H2026) and noge'a ("[one who] has touched", H5060) function as substantives ("the one who kills," "the one who touches"), each introduced by kol ("any", H3605). This parallel structure creates two defined categories subject to the same purification rule, joined by ve- ("and", H9002). The verb titchate'u ("you will purify yourselves", H2398) is hithpael, a reflexive/reciprocal stem, indicating the subjects perform the purification on themselves rather than receiving it passively.

The closing clause repeats atem ("you", H0859D) and adds u-shevikhem ("and your captives", H7628A+H9026), explicitly grouping the returning Israelites and their captives under the same instruction using parallel independent-pronoun-plus-noun structure.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the seven-day duration simply as hēmeras ("days"), without explicitly repeating the numeral "seven" at that point in the Greek clause as given, though the encampment command precedes it. The LXX also uses tetrōmenou ("wounded/pierced one") where the Hebrew has chalal ("slain", H2491A), a difference in the specific term for the dead body. The Vulgate condenses the two participial categories (horeg, noge'a) into a conditional construction ("qui occiderit... vel occisum tetigerit"), shifting the Hebrew's substantive-participle style into a relative/conditional clause structure.