Numbers 31:15
Said: Why have you saved the women?
Open Numbers 31:15 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- ait : Cur feminas reservastis ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Μωυσῆς Ἵνα τί ἐζωγρήσατε πᾶν θῆλυ;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ם מֹשֶׁ֑ה הַֽחִיִּיתֶ֖ם כָּל נְקֵבָֽה
Haydock's 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)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXIII
And wherefore names he not likewise the punishment for their idolatry? Either because it was clear and more notorious, or because the plague was not so great at that time, as in the matter of Balaam, when they joined themselves to Baalpeor, the Midianitish women appearing in the camp and alluring them to wantonness according to the counsel of Balaam. For that this evil counsel was Balaam’s Moses sheweth after this, in the following statement at the end of the Book of Numbers. ( Numb. xxxi. 8, 11, 15, 16 . in our translation.) “Balaam also the son of Beor they slew in the war of Midian with the sword and they brought the spoils.... And Moses was wroth, and said, Wherefore have ye saved all the women alive? For these were to the children of Israel for a stumbling-block, according to the word of Balaam, to cause them to depart from and despise the word of the Lord for Peor’s sake.”