And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.
Abide without the camp seven days. Though the Israelites had taken the field in obedience to the command of God, they had become defiled by contact with the dead. A process of purification was to be undergone, as the law required (Leviticus 15:13; Numbers 19:9-12); and this purifying ceremony was extended to dress, houses, tents-to everything on which a dead body had lain, which had been touched by the blood-stained hands of the Israelite warriors, or which had been the property of idolaters. This became a standing ordinance in all time coming (Leviticus 6:28; Leviticus 11:33; Leviticus 15:12).