"48 Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, came near to Moses 49 and said to Moses, “Your servants have counted the men of war who are under our command, and there is not a man missing from us. 50 And we have brought the Lord's offering, what each man found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and beads, to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.” 51 And Moses and Eleazar the priest received from them the gold, all crafted articles. 52 And all the gold of the contribution that they presented to the Lord, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was 16,750 shekels. 53 (The men in the army had each taken plunder for himself.) 54 And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, as a memorial for the people of Israel before the Lord."
Numbers 31:48-54
On a roll call being taken of the army, the officers found that not a single Israelite soldier had been lost. Such a miraculous preservation called forth from them an expression of thanksgiving, in the form of a sacrificial gift to the Lord from their own portion of the booty. In view of the fact that so many of the lessons presented to us from the experience of the Israelites are sad and grim ones, it is good for us to note here that in some respects at least they were 'getting the message' as to what being a true people of God really meant. Here they do the right thing, and express their gratitude to God, acknowledging in a spirit of generous giving His goodness to them. The Lord, as Paul reminds us, loves a cheerful giver, and it must have been a source of joy to the Lord that they should have shown such a spirit of thankful- ness That this is the true basis of liberality is seen in Paul's teaching on the subject in 2 Corinthians 8/9; and we should note that there was nothing niggardly in their giving (50)
they gave generously and even lavishly of their hard-won spoils. It is almost a truism to say that a thankful heart is a generous heart; perhaps if the Church of God were more conscious of the mercies of God in Christ, there would be more generous and sacrificial giving on the part of God's people. The financial problems of any Church are always, in the last analysis, spiritual.