28<\/strong>. levy a tribute<\/em> ] lit. ‘lift off a fixed proportion.’ The verb has the technical sense which is more often found in the corresponding subst. termh<\/em> ( Num 31:29<\/em><\/span>); see on Num 31:9<\/span>.<\/p>\n one soul<\/em> out of<\/strong> (every) five hundred<\/em> ] The word nephesh<\/em> (‘soul’) denotes the life or animating principle of every living creature, man or beast, and here stands for an ‘individual’ person or a ‘head’ of cattle.<\/p>\n the beeves<\/em> ] an archaic plural of ‘beef,’ used for the live animals; cf. Shakespeare, Merch. of Venice<\/em>, 1. iii. 68, ‘flesh of muttons, beefs or goats.’ The word occurs in R.V. and A.V. five times in this chapter, and in Lev 22:19<\/span>; Lev 22:21<\/span> (R.V. in the latter verse ‘herd’).<\/p>\n Verse 28<\/span>. And levy a tribute unto the Lord – one soul of five<\/B><\/I> <\/B>hundred, &c.<\/B><\/I>] The person<\/I> to be employed in the Lord’s service, under the Levites-the cattle<\/I> either for sacrifice, or for the use of the Levites, Nu 31:30<\/span>. Some monsters have supposed that one<\/I> out of every five hundred<\/I> of the captives was offered in sacrifice to the Lord! but this is abominable. When God chose to have the life of a man, he took it in the way of justice<\/I>, as in the case of Midianites above, but never in the way of sacrifice<\/I>.<\/P><\/p>\n One soul, <\/B>i.e. one person, as it follows here and Num 31:30<\/span>. <\/P> <\/p>\n And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war, which went out to battle<\/strong>,…. That is, out of the part of the prey which was divided to them:<\/p>\n one soul of five hundred<\/strong>, both “of the persons”; or one woman of five hundred, as the Targum of Jonathan:<\/p>\n and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep<\/strong>; that is, one out of five hundred, of each of them also.<\/p>\n 28. And levy a tribute unto the Lord. God now requires a tribute, or holy oblation, out of the spoil from both parties, but in unequal portions, the people paying ten times more than the soldiers. There was a twofold reason and object for this tribute; for it was not fair that the Levites alone should be sent away empty, as if their condition were worse than that of the rest, because they were occupied in the service of God, and in taking care of the holy things. But the part which He assigns to them, God commands to be offered to Himself, that men may not only regard equity amongst each other, but that religion may stand in the foremost place; for nothing can be more unreasonable than that the rights of men should be maintained inviolate, whilst God himself is overlooked. In order, then, to testify their piety, the offering was enjoined, as if God claimed for Himself the glory of the victory in taking this fiftieth and five-hundredth portion. But, inasmuch as He has no want of anything, having full satisfaction in Himself alone, the Levites are substituted in His stead, that they may receive some reward for their ministry. <\/p>\n Again, we perceive that God dealt more liberally with the soldiers than with the rest of the multitude; nor is this a matter of surprise, for, since He had laid a greater burden upon them, it was just that they should be enriched by more fruits of the victory, for He heaps blessings upon blessings according to His pleasure. <\/p>\n From this distribution we also gather that it depends upon His ordinance that some should be richer than others; for, if there were no such thing as property, there would be no test of justice and integrity. <\/p>\n (28) And levy a tribute unto the Lord.<\/strong>Literally, and thou shalt lift up <\/em>(or, heave<\/em>), <\/em>&c. The portion assigned to the priests, which was taken from the prey that fell to the lot of the warriors, and which is described in Num. 31:29<\/span> as the heave offering of the Lord, was one-five-hundredth part of the maidens and of the cattle which had fallen to their share. The maidens were probably employed as slaves, and the cattle used for the maintenance of the priests. Inasmuch, then, as the entire booty consisted of 32,000 maidens, 675,000 small cattle, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 asses, the portion which fell to the lot of the 12,000 warriors was 16,000 maidens, 337,500 sheep and goats, 36,000 oxen, and 30,500 asses, of which the portion of the priests was 32 maidens, 675 sheep and goats, 72 oxen, and 61 asses.<\/p>\n 28<\/strong>. <\/strong> Levy a tribute <\/strong> One fifth of one per cent. of the portion of the army of the human captives and animals was to be set apart for the Lord in acknowledgment of him as the God of battles and the author of victory.<\/p>\n Num 31:28-29<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>A tribute unto the Lordone soul of five hundred<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> As the word soul <\/em>refers to the cattle as well as to the men, it would be better to render this, one life, <\/em>or living being, <\/em>of five hundred. <\/em>God being the sovereign of the nation, this tribute was an homage of submission and gratitude justly due to him; and the custom was imitated by the heathens. The Philistines hung up the arms of Saul in the temple of Ashteroth; 1Sa 31:10<\/span> and the Greeks and Romans, in like manner, consecrated them to their different divinities. See Virg. AEn. iii. ver. 222. and Saurin’s 67th Dissertation. The Lord’s tribute of persons <\/em>was a tribute or donation for the use of the priests and Levites, to be employed by them as the ministers and servants; i.e. they were to be to the tribe of Levi what the rest of the captives were to the other tribes: they, as well as the other part of this tribute, the beeves, asses, <\/em>&c. were to be a heave-offering to the Lord. <\/em>Now the heave-offering, or terumah, <\/em>was never burnt or consumed upon the altar; but, after certain rites of consecration, it was allotted to the service of the priests and their families, or for other sacred uses; see chap. Num 18:19<\/span> compared with Exo 29:27<\/span> and Dr. Sykes’s Connection of Nat. and Rev. Religion. This, which is the just explication of the passage, shews the absurdity, and iniquity of Voltaire’s remark in the 12th chapter of his treatise on Toleration, where, catching at an ambiguous version of the 40th verse in the Vulgate, he says, (with a view to fix upon the Israelites the odium of offering human sacrifices,) that “some of the commentators even pretend, that thirty-two of the virgins were sacrificed to the Lord; cesserunt in<\/em> partem domini trigintae duae animae:” <\/em>whereas all that the sacred writer says, is, that the Lord’s tribute, <\/em>or heave-offering, was thirty and two persons; i.e.<\/em> thirty and two persons were assigned from the prey as slaves to the priests and Levites. <\/p>\n tribute = computed value, assigned to Jehovah. Hebrew. mekes. Occurs only in this chapter. <\/p>\n soul. Hebrew. nephesh. <\/p>\n persons = men. Hebrew. ‘adam. <\/p>\n levy: Gen 14:20, Jos 6:19, Jos 6:24, 2Sa 8:11, 2Sa 8:12, 1Ch 18:11, 1Ch 26:26, 1Ch 26:27, Pro 3:9, Pro 3:10, Isa 18:7, Isa 23:18, Isa 60:9, Mat 22:21 <\/p>\n one soul: Num 31:30, Num 31:47, Num 18:26 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Num 31:32 – the booty Deu 16:10 – a tribute 2Ch 15:11 – offered<\/p>\n 31:28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the {k} men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, [both] of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:<\/p>\n (k) Of the prey that falls to the soldiers.<\/p>\n And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, [both] of the persons, and of the beefs, and of the asses, and of the sheep: 28. levy a tribute ] lit. ‘lift off a fixed proportion.’ The verb has the technical sense … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 31:28”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"