The Purification of Plunder Text: Numbers 31:21-24
Introduction: The Filth of Holy War
We live in a sentimental age, an age that prefers a god who is more of a kindly, celestial grandfather than the Holy One of Israel. Our generation wants a Jesus who is all mercy and no judgment, all grace and no law. And so, when we come to a passage like this one, nestled in the middle of a chapter detailing a holy war against the Midianites, the modern reader tends to get the vapors. He wants to skip over it, to apologize for it, or to pretend it belongs to a different, more primitive God.
But the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He does not change. This passage is not an embarrassing historical footnote. It is a profound theological lesson, a gigantic audio-visual aid, teaching us about the nature of holiness, the nature of the world, and the nature of our salvation. Israel had just executed the righteous judgment of God against the profound wickedness of Midian, a wickedness that had deliberately sought to corrupt Israel through sexual sin and idolatry at Baal Peor. This was not a simple border skirmish; it was a spiritual fumigation.
But notice what happens next. The soldiers, having been instruments of God's wrath, are not welcomed back with a simple parade. The plunder, the spoils of a righteous war, is not simply brought into the camp and distributed. Both the warriors and their loot are considered unclean. They are contaminated. Contact with a sinful world system, even in the act of judging it, defiles. This is a truth our therapeutic age has completely forgotten. We think we can dabble in the world's art, entertainment, philosophies, and wealth, and bring it all into the church untroubled and uncleaned. But God says otherwise. Everything taken from the world must be purified. Everything. This is the statute of the law, and it reveals the grammar of our sanctification.
The Text
Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle, "This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded Moses: only the gold and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin and the lead, everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean, but it shall be purified with water for impurity. But whatever cannot stand the fire you shall pass through the water. And you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you may enter the camp."
(Numbers 31:21-24 LSB)
The Statute of the Law (v. 21-22)
We begin with the authority behind this command.
"Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle, 'This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded Moses: only the gold and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin and the lead...'" (Numbers 31:21-22)
Eleazar the priest, not a general, delivers this instruction. This is crucial. The issue at hand is not military protocol but spiritual reality. It is a matter of holiness, and therefore it is the priest's domain. He makes it clear that this is not his own bright idea, nor is it a suggestion from Moses. This is "the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded Moses." God is the one who sets the terms of holiness. We do not get to invent our own definitions of what is clean and unclean. We do not get to decide how we approach a holy God. He tells us. Worship and life are to be conducted on His terms, not ours.
The list of metals here is significant. Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead. These are the hard assets, the durable wealth of the ancient world. They represent the best and most enduring things the world has to offer. They are the things that men value, the things that last. This is the world's treasure. And God's law says that even this, the most valuable plunder from the enemy camp, is fundamentally defiled. It has been used in the service of idols. It has been shaped by pagan hands for pagan purposes. It is saturated with the rebellion of the world system from which it was taken. Before it can be used by the people of God, it must be consecrated.
Trial by Fire and Water (v. 23)
Verse 23 gives us the two-part process for this consecration, and it is shot through with gospel typology.
"...everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean, but it shall be purified with water for impurity. But whatever cannot stand the fire you shall pass through the water." (Numbers 31:23 LSB)
Here we have a fundamental division. There are things that can endure the fire, and things that cannot. The metals, the hard things, must go through the fire. What does this fire represent? The fire is a type of the judgment of God. It is the refining, purging, holy wrath of God that consumes all dross and impurity. The apostle Paul picks up this very imagery when he speaks of the judgment of our works: "each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done" (1 Corinthians 3:13).
Anything we take from the world, whether it is an educational philosophy, a business practice, a song, or a political idea, must first be passed through the fire of God's Word. It must be tested against the absolute standard of divine judgment. We must ask, is this thing founded on principles that can withstand the scrutiny of a holy God? Or is it wood, hay, and stubble, destined to be consumed?
But notice, the fire is not enough. After the metals pass through the fire, they are considered "clean," but they are not yet consecrated. They must then "be purified with water for impurity." This water of cleansing, the niddah water, was mixed with the ashes of the red heifer (Numbers 19). It was the ceremonial provision for cleansing from contact with death. So we have a two-step process. First, the fire of judgment, and second, the water of sacrificial atonement. This is a beautiful picture of the gospel. The fire represents the justice of God that Christ endured on the cross. He absorbed the full, fiery wrath that our sins deserved. But for that work to be applied to us, there must be the sprinkling of His blood, the washing of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Judgment and grace. Justice and mercy. The fire and the water. Both are necessary. We cannot have one without the other. To bring the things of the world into the church without first testing them by the fire of God's judgment is syncretism. But to subject them to judgment without applying the cleansing blood of Christ is to remain in our defilement.
And what of the things that cannot stand the fire? The textiles, the wooden objects, the softer plunder. They must simply "pass through the water." They are not durable enough for the fire of judgment, but they still require the water of cleansing. This teaches us that nothing, absolutely nothing, from the fallen world is exempt. Every part of our lives, the great and the small, the durable and the perishable, must be brought under the cleansing power of Christ's sacrifice. There are no neutral zones.
The Cleansing of the Warriors (v. 24)
Finally, the law turns from the plunder to the soldiers themselves.
"And you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you may enter the camp." (Numbers 31:24 LSB)
This is a profound rebuke to all forms of self-righteousness. These men were not mercenaries; they were the instruments of God's own vengeance. They had done a righteous thing. And yet, in the very act of doing it, they were contaminated. Contact with death, even the righteous execution of the wicked, rendered them unclean. Their own clothes, stained with the dust and blood of battle, had to be washed.
This tells us that we can never stand on our own performance, not even our obedience. The best of our works are stained with sin. We are engaged in a spiritual war, and we cannot fight that war without getting dirty. We live in a fallen world, and we are fallen creatures. Therefore, we are in constant need of cleansing. We must continually wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).
The cleansing is to happen "on the seventh day." The seventh day is the day of completion, the Sabbath. This points to our ultimate rest in the finished work of Christ. It is only after this complete, Sabbath-cleansing that they are permitted to "enter the camp." The camp of Israel was where God dwelled in the Tabernacle. Therefore, this is a picture of fellowship. We cannot have fellowship with a holy God, or with His holy people, while we are still covered in the filth of our battles. We must first be washed. This is why we confess our sins. Not to be saved all over again, but to restore the joy of our fellowship, to be clean so that we might "enter the camp."
Conclusion: Consecrating the Plunder
This statute from the wilderness is not a dead letter for us. It is the living Word of God, and it instructs us in our spiritual warfare today. We are called to take dominion in the name of Christ. We are to take the intellectual capital of the pagans, the artistic treasures of the unbelievers, the wealth of the nations, and press it all into the service of King Jesus. We are to plunder the Egyptians.
But as we do so, we must remember the lesson of Eleazar. Every piece of plunder we take from the world is contaminated. Your career, your education, your money, your hobbies, your entertainment, your political engagement, all of it has been forged in a world system that is at war with God. You cannot simply baptize it with a Christian label and bring it into the camp.
First, it must pass through the fire. It must be held up to the searching light of Scripture and judged. Its Christless presuppositions must be burned away. And second, it must be cleansed by the water of impurity. It must be consecrated, set apart for holy use, by the blood of Jesus Christ, applied by the Spirit. And we ourselves, the warriors, must be constantly washing our garments. We must live lives of continual repentance and faith, acknowledging that even our best efforts are tainted and in need of grace.
Let us therefore be a holy people. Let us not be afraid to engage the world and take its treasures for our King. But let us do so with our eyes wide open to its defilement, and with our hearts fixed on the fire and the water, the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can make unclean things clean.