What Does Deuteronomy 20:14 Mean?
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.
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
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.THE KEY
The verse places women and children in the same grammar of possession as livestock and loot, then names the whole taking as given by God.
THE MEANING
Here, the command puts women, children, cattle, and city goods within the victor’s possession and calls the transfer something the LORD gives. It lists captured people beside livestock and plunder as one allotment. The violence remains explicit in that grammar.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It breaks the assumption that “spoil” here means only movable wealth: women and children are named among what is taken.
THE ROOT
תְּבֹז
teboz
GROWS FROM
בזז
To plunder or seize as spoil.
“you shall take for yourself” in this verse is teboz. The verb translated “take” carries the sense of plundering, and the list places women and children inside that act alongside cattle and goods. The root makes the seizure in the verse’s wording unmistakable.
ALSO GROWS
baz: Booty, prey, or plunder.
בַּז
This noun names what the plundering verb takes, binding the act to its spoils.
bizzah: Spoil or plunder taken in war.
בִּזָּה
This branch keeps the taking concrete: the people and goods listed are treated as what conquest claims.
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“given” in this verse is natan. The verse uses the ordinary word for giving while naming the plundered people and goods as what the LORD gives to the victor. Its range of give, set, and place keeps the transfer concrete and retains the weight of the verse’s claim.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This related noun shows the same root can frame what is handed over as a gift.
nathun: Given or placed.
נָתוּן
This form carries the same sense of something being put into another’s possession.
THE PATTERN
In conquest language, victory becomes a transfer of the defeated party’s people and goods into the conqueror’s hands.
And the children of Israel took captive all the women of Midian, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods.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.But when a stronger one comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him his full armor, in which he trusted, and distributes his spoils.THE THREAD
And the children of Israel took captive all the women of Midian, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods.The Hebrew uses the same root, בזז (bazaz), for plundering after naming women, little ones, animals, and goods. That shared root makes clear that people and property are swept into the same act of seizure.
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