Numbers 31:20

31:20 You must purify each garment and everything that is made of skin, everything made of goat’s hair, and everything made of wood.” ¹ 

Numbers 31:51

31:51 Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from them, all of it in the form of ornaments.

Numbers 8:4

8:4 This is how the lampstand was made: ²  It was beaten work in gold; ³  from its shaft to its flowers it was beaten work. According to the pattern which the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.

¹ sn These verses are a reminder that taking a life, even if justified through holy war, still separates one from the holiness of God. It is part of the violation of the fallen world, and only through the ritual of purification can one be once again made fit for the presence of the Lord.

² tn The Hebrew text literally has “and this is the work of the lampstand,” but that rendering does not convey the sense that it is describing how it was made.

³ sn The idea is that it was all hammered from a single plate of gold.