What Does Deuteronomy 2:35 Mean?
Only the animals we plundered for ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.THE KEY
“Only” narrows the list, while the roots reveal both sides of the taking: the act of plundering and the spoil claimed for themselves.
THE MEANING
The verse names what the victors retain: cattle and the captured cities’ spoil, claimed for themselves. “Only” narrows the account of what they take, while the violence that makes this wealth available remains in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the thought that “only” makes a taking small or innocent; even the narrowed list names plunder.
THE ROOT
בָּזַזְנוּ
bazaznu
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
To plunder or take as booty.
“plundered” in this verse is bazaznu. Here the word translated “took for a prey” names the act of plundering; “for ourselves” names who receives what is taken. English can make “prey” sound like an object, while the Hebrew form puts the taking in the foreground.
ALSO GROWS
baz: Booty, plunder.
בַּז
This noun names what the act of plundering produces: the goods claimed as spoil.
bazzu: They plundered.
בָּזְזוּ
In Genesis 34:27, the same root describes the seizure of a city’s goods, making the violence within “plunder” explicit.
שְׁלַל
shalal
GROWS FROM
שלל
sh-l-l
To plunder; goods taken as spoil.
The verse uses one root for the act of plundering and another for the spoil that is kept. That distinction lets you see both the taking and the inventory it leaves behind.
ALSO GROWS
shalal: Spoil, booty.
שָׁלָל
As a noun, it names the goods the verse says are retained.
lishlol: To plunder or take spoil.
לִשְׁלֹל
In Isaiah 10:6, this verb names the act of taking spoil, linking the retained goods here to the act that produces them.
THE PATTERN
War narratives mark victory by naming what the victors destroy and what they claim as spoil.
But the women, the little ones, the cattle, and all that is in the city, all its plunder, you shall take for yourself; and you shall eat the plunder of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.And you shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city from behind it.And David took all the flocks and the herds, which they drove before that other livestock, and they said, This is David's plunder.THE THREAD
And you shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city from behind it.Joshua 8:2 repeats “take for a prey unto yourselves,” using the same root for plundering as Deuteronomy’s “we took for a prey.” The shared wording shows “only” marking a boundary within the taking, not making the taking incidental.
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