Numbers 31:46

Study note

Setting — The narrative records the final inventory of Midianite plunder after a military campaign, listing captured livestock and human captives before detailing how the spoils will be divided.

The words — The text uses נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) and אָדָם (adam) quantified as שִׁשָּׁה עָשָׂר אֶלֶף (sixteen thousand), literally denoting sixteen thousand persons or human beings.

The thread — This count directly follows the tally of thirty thousand five hundred donkeys in Numbers 31:45 and precedes the tithe of one person out of fifty given to the Levites in Numbers 31:47.

Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to acknowledge human captives as a measured component of wartime accounting, framing them within a strict administrative process rather than as abstract figures.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.