Numbers Chapter 21 verse 2 Holy Bible
And Israel vowed a vow unto Jehovah, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
read chapter 21 in ASV
Then Israel made an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give up this people into my hands, then I will send complete destruction on all their towns.
read chapter 21 in BBE
Then Israel vowed a vow to Jehovah, and said, If thou give this people wholly into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
read chapter 21 in DARBY
And Israel vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
read chapter 21 in KJV
And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
read chapter 21 in WBT
Israel vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
read chapter 21 in WEB
And Israel voweth a vow to Jehovah, and saith, `If Thou dost certainly give this people into my hand, then I have devoted their cities;'
read chapter 21 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 2. - And Israel vowed a vow. On these vows, and on things "devoted" or "banned" (חֵרֶם - ἀνάθεμα), see on Leviticus 27:28, and on the moral character of such wholesale slaughters see on chapter 31. If it was right to destroy the Canaanites at all, no fault can be found with the vow; it merely did for that military proceeding what national feeling and discipline does for the far more bloody exigencies of modern warfare, removing it from the sphere of private hatred, revenge, and cupidity, and placing it upon a higher level. The patriot soldier of these days feels himself to be a mere instrument in the hands of the rulers of his people to maintain their rights or avenge their wrongs. The Israelite could not have this feeling, which was foreign to his time and place in history, but he could feel that he was a mere instrument in the hands of God to perform his will upon his enemies. In either case a must important advantage is secured; the soldier does not slay in order to gratify his own hatred, or in order to satisfy his own cupidity. It is quite true that such vows as are here mentioned would certainly in a more advanced stage of civilization be abused to throw a cloak of religion over frightful enormities; but it does not in the least follow that they were not permitted and even encouraged by God in an age to which they were natural, and under circumstances in which they were beneficial.