The principle of the “ban” in holy war required the dedication of booty (whether men, animals, or objects) to the LORD through destruction (so Budd, page 331). Even though the Israelite soldiers followed the holy war instructions of Deut 20.13-14, Moses was angry with them. They should not have allowed the Midianite women to live, because these women had seduced the Israelites into apostasy and adultery.

Moses said to them: The verb said may be rendered “asked” (Good News Translation) or “demanded” (New Living Translation), depending on a person’s interpretation of the nature of the following question (see the comments below).

Have you let all the women live?: The Hebrew expression here takes the form of a question that can be answered with yes or no. But the answer is already obvious in the context. So New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh interprets the Hebrew as a rhetorical question, rendering it as an exclamation: “You have spared every female!” Traduction œcuménique de la Bible makes this exclamation even more explicit with “What! … you have let all the women live!” and so does Contemporary English Version with “I can’t believe you let the women live!” The question in Good News Translation is a real question, expecting an answer or explanation in response: “Why have you kept all the women alive?” (similarly New Living Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). This rendering is based on what the major ancient versions have (Septuagint, Vulgate, Peshitta, Samaritan Pentateuch). The form of the Hebrew verb rendered let … live could be interpreted to mean “preserved alive” or “allowed to live,” implying that this should not have been done. All the women is literally “every female.”

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .