Numbers 31:28,29 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

A tribute unto the Lord—one soul of five hundred— As the word soul refers to the cattle as well as to the men, it would be better to render this, one life, or living being, of five hundred. God being the sovereign of the nation, this tribute was an homage of submission and gratitude justly due to him; and the custom was imitated by the heathens. The Philistines hung up the arms of Saul in the temple of Ashteroth; 1 Samuel 31:10 and the Greeks and Romans, in like manner, consecrated them to their different divinities. See Virg. AEn. iii. ver. 222. and Saurin's 67th Dissertation. The Lord's tribute of persons was a tribute or donation for the use of the priests and Levites, to be employed by them as the ministers and servants; i.e. they were to be to the tribe of Levi what the rest of the captives were to the other tribes: they, as well as the other part of this tribute, the beeves, asses, &c. were to be a heave-offering to the Lord. Now the heave-offering, or terumah, was never burnt or consumed upon the altar; but, after certain rites of consecration, it was allotted to the service of the priests and their families, or for other sacred uses; see chap. Numbers 18:19 compared with Exodus 29:27 and Dr. Sykes's Connection of Nat. and Rev. Religion. This, which is the just explication of the passage, shews the absurdity, and iniquity of Voltaire's remark in the 12th chapter of his treatise on Toleration, where, catching at an ambiguous version of the 40th verse in the Vulgate, he says, (with a view to fix upon the Israelites the odium of offering human sacrifices,) that "some of the commentators even pretend, that thirty-two of the virgins were sacrificed to the Lord; cesserunt in partem domini trigintae duae animae:" whereas all that the sacred writer says, is, that the Lord's tribute, or heave-offering, was thirty and two persons; i.e. thirty and two persons were assigned from the prey as slaves to the priests and Levites.