TRIBUTE — a war-levy word that occurs six times in the whole Hebrew Bible, and all six are in this one chapter (Numbers 31, now on these pages: vv28, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41), confirmed by a consonantal search of the archived text; the word appears nowhere else. It is deliberately distinct from the ordinary priestly-income word terumah, 'contribution' — v29 uses both in the same clause, the soldiers' mekhes becoming, once collected, Eleazar's terumah. The two halves of the war's spoil are taxed at very different rates: one in five hundred from the 12,000 soldiers who fought (0.2%), one in fifty from the rest of the congregation (2%) — a tenfold difference, with the lighter burden falling on the men who risked the battle. → first discussed at Num 31:28