What Does Joshua 8:27 Mean in the King James?
Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Even the spoils of conquest sit inside a spoken boundary: what is kept answers to a specific word.
THE MEANING
Here, conquest and taking stand together: the city is destroyed, and cattle and goods are kept. The verse names that retention as following the LORD’s specific command to Joshua, so the permission has a boundary. For you now, its language makes possession answer to an ordering word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that victory makes everything available for the taking: the verse names a limited portion kept under a specific command.
THE ROOT
צִוָּה
tsivvah
GROWS FROM
צוה
ts-w-h
To command, charge, or give an order.
“commanded” in this verse is tsivvah. The verse ties what Israel keeps to an instruction, making the taking a bounded allowance within the account of conquest. The same root grows into words for both a command and a commandment.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: Commandment
מִצְוָה
It shows the root extending from a spoken order to an instruction that governs action.
tsav: Command or injunction
צַו
It keeps the sense of a specific directive that sets what may be done.
שְׁלַל
shelal
GROWS FROM
שלל
sh-l-l
To strip or plunder; as a noun, booty or spoil.
“spoil” in this verse is shelal. The word for the goods taken carries the sense of plundering in its own root. That keeps the material result of the conquest visible even as the verse places it under a command.
ALSO GROWS
shalal: To plunder or strip away
שָׁלַל
The verbal branch names the act behind the goods called spoil.
shalal: Booty or spoil
שָׁלָל
This noun branch names what remains after plundering.
בָּזְזוּ
bazazu
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
To plunder or seize as booty.
“took for a prey” in this verse is bazazu. The Hebrew pairs a noun for spoil with a verb meaning they plundered, holding the goods and the act of taking together. The command therefore governs an actual taking, not merely an abstract reward.
ALSO GROWS
baz: Booty or plunder
בַּז
It names the goods seized in the act described by the verse.
bizzah: Spoil or plunder
בִּזָּה
It carries the same root sense of goods taken as booty.
THE PATTERN
Material provision is treated as something allotted by a governing rule, not as ownerless gain.
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.For who will hearken unto you in this matter? but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike.Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.THE THREAD
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.Joshua’s “spoil” and Deuteronomy’s “spoil” use the same Hebrew noun שָׁלָל (shalal, booty or spoil), from the root שלל (sh-l-l, to strip or plunder). Deuteronomy makes explicit that the captured goods are taken and eaten as something the LORD gives, opening Joshua’s brief line as bounded provision within the command.
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