Numbers 31:15

31:15 Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? ¹ 

Numbers 31:35

31:35 and 32,000 young women who had never had sexual intercourse with a man. ² 

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¹ tn The verb is the Piel perfect of the word חָיָה (khayah, “to live”). In the Piel stem it must here mean “preserve alive,” or “allow to live,” rather than make alive.

² sn Here again we encounter one of the difficulties of the book, the use of the large numbers. Only twelve thousand soldiers fought the Midianites, but they brought back this amount of plunder, including 32,000 girls. Until a solution for numbers in the book can be found, or the current translation confirmed, one must remain cautious in interpretation.