What’s in a Word?

society

spoils of war

שלל · בז · בזה · מלקוח · שבי · עד

Bottom line

Shalal is the general word for spoils, and where it is paired with others it means the clothing, vessels, and valuables. Baz / bizah is the lesser loot, what is stripped afterward, named from a root of contempt. Malkoach is live captives, animals, and where it stands alone, people and animals both. Shevi is human captives. Ad is booty in the sense of ornaments stripped from the fallen. The trap: English "spoils" and "booty" will cover all five, and Bamidbar 31:11-12 uses four of them in two pesukim, where each is doing separate work.

Distinctions

shalal (שלל)

The word of the Shirah, "I will divide the shalal" (Shemos 15:9). Rashi (to Bamidbar 31:11): shalal is clothing and jewelry. Radak: clothing and vessels. Rabbi Avraham Bedersi HaPenini and the Maharal (Gur Aryeh there) endorse Rashi's division and support it from other appearances. Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer objects from Divrei HaYamim II 15:11, where captured shalal is offered as korbanos, so shalal can include animals against Rashi and Radak. Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 31:11) resolves it as a matter of company: standing alone, shalal can mean anything taken in battle, animals and people included, since all spoils are alike in being taken by force; it narrows only when other words stand beside it. Malbim: shalal is the general term for the defeated party's ownerless property, while bizah is specifically property already taken as loot.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces shalal to the two-letter ש-ל, "moving something out of its proper place," as in shal na'alecha, "remove your shoes" (Shemos 3:5). Spoils are property moved off its owner as the prize of war. On that sense Rabbi Shmuel Ibn Tibbon, translating the Moreh Nevuchim, re-appropriated shalal to coin shelilah/shelili for "negative," since plundered property is what is now lacking, and paired it with chiyuv for "positive."

baz, bizah (בז, בזה)

The Vilna Gaon (Biur HaGra to Yeshayahu 10:6) reads plunder as staged: first the valuables are taken, and those are shalal; then the lesser items, and those are bizah, a word akin to bizayon (disgrace) because they are not prized like the first; finally whatever remains is stripped so the enemy is left with nothing. Elsewhere (Biur HaGra to Divrei HaYamim II 14:13) he draws the line differently: bizah is the non-living booty, shevi the living. Rashi (to Bamidbar 31:11): baz is movable property other than jewelry.

Rabbi Pappenheim puts baz/bizah in the two-letter ב-ז, "reckoned unimportant," and gives three ways it fits: the plunderers degrade what they take by taking it for free, as though it were not worth paying for; having paid nothing they handle it carelessly; and the victims themselves, fleeing for their lives, show they no longer value what they leave behind. Ibn Saruk agrees with the two-letter root; Ibn Janach and Radak assign ב-ז-ז instead, distinct from ב-ז-ה, the verb of disparaging.

malkoach (מלקוח) and shevi (שבי)

Rashi (to Bamidbar 31:11): malkoach is living booty, people and animals. Radak: shevi is human prisoners and malkoach animals, but where malkoach appears later without shevi beside it (Bamidbar 31:27) it covers every living thing taken. Malbim makes the same relation here as between shalal and bizah: shevi is all the captured people of the defeated side, malkoach specifically those the captors took for themselves, as slaves or otherwise. The root of malkoach is ל-ק-ח, "taking." Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein explains why Hebrew needs separate words for living and inanimate booty: inanimate objects are taken by hand and by force, while living creatures are often taken by word, by command or persuasion.

ad (עד)

"Binyamin is a wolf that tears; in the morning he devours ad and in the evening he divides shalal" (Bereishis 49:27). Rashi: ad here is plunder, and the root ע-ד carries that meaning in Aramaic. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur notes that the Targumim usually render Hebrew shalal and bizah with Aramaic cognates of ad; the Aramaic root also means removal (Targum Onkelos to Shemos 25:15) and even atonement, the removal of sin (Targum to Yeshayahu 47:1), which suits booty as the removal of property from the loser's domain. Rabbi Pappenheim derives it instead from adi, "ornament," and limits it to the decorative battle-dress soldiers wore and were stripped of when captured. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg takes ad from ad in the sense of transferring, since booty is a change of ownership, and holds that shalal is the catch-all while ad is specifically jewelry and decorative items. Malbim reads ad narrowly as dead animals taken as war prizes.

Rendering guidance

  • Standing alone, shalal is spoils or the spoils of war; in a list it narrows to clothing and valuables.
  • Bizah: plunder or loot, and where the Gra's staging matters, "the lesser loot." Bizas Mitzrayim and bizas hayam keep the transliteration.
  • Shevi: captives. Malkoach: live captives or the captured livestock, according to whether shevi stands beside it.
  • Ad at Bereishis 49:27: prey works for the wolf image; where the Pappenheim or Mecklenburg reading is wanted, ornaments or finery taken in battle.
  • Trap: "booty" and "spoils" are near-synonyms in English and will flatten Bamidbar 31:11-12 into a single word repeated four times. Assign one English word per Hebrew word for the length of the passage (spoils / plunder / live captives / captives) and hold to it even where it reads slightly stiff.
  • Trap: bizah carries contempt in its root and shalal does not. Where a derashah turns on that (the Gra on Yeshayahu 10:6), do not render bizah with a dignified word.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Take Your Spoils," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 13 Shevat 5780 (2020-02-08): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8594-take-your-spoils.md. Primary loci: Shemos 15:9, 3:5, 25:15 (Targum Onkelos); Bamidbar 31:11-12, 31:27 with Rashi and Gur Aryeh; Bereishis 49:27; Yeshayahu 10:6 and 47:1; Divrei HaYamim II 14:13, 15:11; Biur HaGra to Yeshayahu 10:6 and to Divrei HaYamim II 14:13; Rabbi Avraham Bedersi HaPenini, Chosam Tochnis.