Numbers 31:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Moses said to them, Have you saved all the women alive?

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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נְקֵבָֽה

nᵉqêbâh

H5347

“woman”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 22× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 1:27

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5344

TWOT: 1409b

female - woman, female child - female animal

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is נְקֵבָֽה woman H5347 — appearing just 22 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

נְקֵבָֽה woman H5347 occurs in 22 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
הַֽחִיִּיתֶ֖ם Piel · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 12 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 9 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 31:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don't spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
Deuteronomy 2:34 We took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones; we left none remaining:
Jeremiah 48:10 Cursed be he who does the work of Yahweh negligently; and cursed be he who keeps back his sword from blood.
Deuteronomy 20:13 and when Yahweh your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword:
Deuteronomy 20:16–18 But of the cities of these peoples, that Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;
Joshua 6:21 They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
Joshua 8:25 All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
Joshua 10:40 So Joshua struck all the land, the hill-country, and the South, and the lowland, and the slopes, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but he utterly destroyed all that breathed, as Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded.

Joshua 11:14 All the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey to themselves; but every man they struck with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any who breathed.
Psalms 137:8–9 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, He will be happy who rewards you, As you have served us.
Ezekiel 9:6 kill utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but don't come near any man on whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the old men that were before the house.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 31:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ם מֹשֶׁ֑ה הַֽחִיִּיתֶ֖ם כָּל נְקֵבָֽה

Moses said to them, Have you saved all the women alive?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 31:15 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον αὐτός μωυσῆς ἵνα τίς ζωγρέω πᾶς θῆλυς

And Moses said to them, Why have you⌃ saved every female alive?

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲמַר לְהוֹן משֶׁה הֲקַיֵמְתּוּן כָּל נוּקְבָא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲמַר לְהוֹן משֶׁה הַקְיֵימְתּוּן כָּל נוּקְבָא

and Mosheh said to them, Why have you spared all the women?

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 31:15 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Num 31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

Ver. 15. Have ye saved all the women alive.] By whom ye have so lately sinned, and so lately suffered! "Keep thee far from an evil matter," {Exo 23:7} Circa serpentis antrum positus, non eris diu illaesus, saith Isidore. We should take heed how we play about the hole of the asp, or near the den of the cockatrice. {Isa 11:8} Sin and temptation come both under one name in the Lord’s Prayer. To pray, "Lead us not into temptation," and yet to run upon the occasion of sin, is to thrust a finger into the fire, and then pray not to be burnt. These Israelites should have said to those Midianitish housewives, as those in Isaiah did to their idols, "Get you hence," Avaunt; they should have here been as cautous as they were in other cases. For being forbidden to make covenants with the Gentiles, they also abstained from drinking with them, because that was a ceremony used in striking of covenants, and so it might have drawn them on thereunto. Our dallying with the occasions of sin, doth usually tempt the devil to tempt us.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

As though he said, ye ought to have spared none.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Have ye saved all the women alive?—It was the women, as is expressed in the following verse, who had been the cause, at the instigation of Balaam, of the apostacy of the Israelites; and consequently the command to “avenge the Lord of Midiani” implied the punishment of those who had been the instruments employed in the seduction of the Israelites.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

15–18. Commands to complete the destruction of the enemy. All male children and all women who are not virgins are to be killed in cold blood. This cruel command ascribed to Moses dates from an age when the Jews were approaching their narrowest and hardest state of exclusiveness, when piety consisted in rigid separateness from everything foreign. It need cause no difficulty to Christians who have received the command ‘Love your enemies.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones,.... Which they had taken and brought captives, Num 31:9.

and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him; who might be such, at least many of them, who had lain with Israelitish men; and as the adulterers had been put to death, so now the adulteresses; or they were ordered to, be slain, even all of them, lest they should entice the children of Israel to uncleanness, and so to idolatry again: now these were known to be such, either by conjecture at their age, or rather, through the examination of matrons, unless it can be thought, as it is by some, that it was by divine revelation.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Women. They had received no positive orders respecting them, and it was customary to spare their lives. But these dissolute women had rendered themselves unworthy of such indulgence, (Calmet) and the sight of them raised the just indignation of Moses, who was afraid lest their manners should corrupt the victors. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

15. All the women — In the gradation of guilt Balaam, Balak, and the princes were first as contrivers of the nefarious scheme to draw Israel into crime, and the women of Midian were second as the agents in its execution. Hence the indignant surprise of Moses that the latter had been spared when punishment for the past and security for the future demanded their death.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nᵉqêbâh (“woman”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word nᵉqêbâh carries the sense “woman.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 1:27 shares the word «woman» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיֹּ֥אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 9 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.