What Does Numbers 31:32 Mean?
And the rest of the prey, the plunder which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand, seventy thousand, and five thousand sheep,
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
And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep,THE KEY
The number begins with a taking: the word “prey” names the sheep as what armed men have seized.
THE MEANING
The verse places a vast flock before you as the remainder taken by armed men. Its count keeps living creatures inside the accounting of war, where “prey” still names the seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A tally of war’s gains is neutral bookkeeping. This verse binds the number to what armed men caught: living creatures counted as spoil.
THE ROOT
מַלְקוֹחַ
malqoaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
To take, receive, or seize.
English gives “prey” and “take” as separate ideas, but this noun grows from the verb for taking: the flock is named as what has been taken. The count therefore measures the reach of seizure, not merely the size of a flock.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take, receive, or seize.
לָקַח
This is the action carried inside the word for prey: the flock enters the count because it has been taken.
leqaḥ: Instruction or learning; what is received.
לֶקַח
The same root can describe what a person takes in as understanding; here it names what armed men take by force.
הַבָּז
habbāz
GROWS FROM
בזז
To plunder or take as spoil.
“plunder” in this verse is habbāz. The verse names the seizure again through the language of spoil. “Booty” and “prey” make the flock both the result of plundering and the living thing caught by it.
ALSO GROWS
bāzaz: To plunder or despoil.
בָּזַז
The verb names the act that makes the flock spoil.
bizzāh: Spoil or plunder.
בִּזָּה
This noun names what plundering produces, echoing the verse’s account of the sheep as booty.
THE PATTERN
When taking is organized as gain, living beings appear in the same inventory as possessions.
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 cinnamon, and fragrances, and incense, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and bodies, and living souls of humankind.THE THREAD
And they took all the spoil and all the prey, both of man and of beast.This verse uses the same Hebrew word, מַלְקוֹחַ (malqoaḥ, prey or captives), as Numbers 31:32. Here it is applied to “both of men and of beasts,” showing that the category containing the counted sheep also includes human captives.
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