Numbers 31:11

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

They took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of man and of animal.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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הַמַּלְק֑וֹחַ

malqôwach

H4455

“the · prey”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 8× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H3947

TWOT: 1124b , 1124c

booty, prey - jaw

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

9: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַמַּלְק֑וֹחַ prey H4455 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

הַמַּלְק֑וֹחַ prey H4455

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַמַּלְק֑וֹחַ prey H4455 occurs in 8 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
6 nouns
2 particles

Verb forms

וַיִּקְחוּ֙ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

כָּל all H3605 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 9 Hebrew tokens and 14 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 31:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 20:14 but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil of it, shall you take for a prey to yourself; and you shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which Yahweh your God has given you.
Joshua 8:2 You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king: only the spoil of it, and the cattle of it, shall you take for a prey to yourselves: set you an ambush for the city behind it.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 31:11 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּקְחוּ֙ אֶת כָּל הַשָּׁלָ֔ל וְאֵ֖ת כָּל הַמַּלְק֑וֹחַ בָּאָדָ֖ם וּבַבְּהֵמָֽה

They took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of man and of animal.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 31:11 Septuagint · lemma form

καί λαμβάνω πᾶς ὁ προνομή καί πᾶς ὁ σκῦλον αὐτός ἀπό ἄνθρωπος ἕως κτῆνος

And they took all their plunder, and all their spoils, both man and beast.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, The Pulpit Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּנְסִיבוּ יָת כָּל עֲדָאָה וְיָת כָּל דְבַרְתָּא בֶּאֱנָשָׁא וּבִבְעִירָא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּשְׁבוּ יַת כָּל עָדִיתָא וְיַת כָּל דְבַרְתָּא בְּאֵינָשָׁא וּבִבְעִירָא

but they took all the spoil and the prey both of men and beasts,

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 31:11 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And they took all the spoil,.... In their cities and castles; and all the prey, both of men and of beasts; all sorts of cattle, oxen, sheep, and asses.

And they took all the spoil,.... In their cities and castles; and all the prey, both of men and of beasts; all sorts of cattle, oxen, sheep, and asses.

Numbers 31:12

num 31:12

num 31:12

num 31:12The women and children, who were the captives, and the beasts which were the prey, and the gold, silver, &c. which were the spoil:

unto Moses and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel; that is, they were bringing the above persons things unto them, returning from the war with Midian:

unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho: see Num 22:1, but they were stopped, and were not admitted into the camp until seven days after.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The “prey” refers to the captives and live-stock: the “spoil” to the ornaments and other effects.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

11. Prey… of men — Human beings, women and children, prisoners of war.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

The spoil. llVh. Septuagint, thn . The booty in goods. The prey. jwOqlMh. Septuagint, ta skula . The booty in livestock, here including the women and children, who are distinguished as "captives" (ybiv) in the next verse.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

All this booty (shalal, booty in goods), and all the prey in man and beast (malkoach), was brought by the conquerors to Moses and Eleazar and the congregation, into the camp in the steppes of Moab. In Num 31:12, שׁבי applies to the women and children who were taken prisoners, מלקוח to the cattle taken as booty, and שׁלל to the rest of the prey.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

They took

"The army of Israel took"

plunder

This refers to the material goods they recovered from killing the Midianite men.

plains

a large area of flat land

translationWords

prison

Moses

Eleazar

priest

Moab

Jordan River

Jericho

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

ויקחו את כל השלל AND THEY TOOK ALL THE SPOIL…[AND THEY BROUGHT IT TO MOSES] — This tells us that they were pious and righteous men and were not suspected of robbery by stretching out their hand against the spoil without permission, for it is said, “they took all the spoil … [and brought it to Moses]” (Sifrei Bamidbar 157:5). About them it is expressed in the traditional literature (Songs 6:6): “They teeth are like a flock of ewes … [whereof all are perfect]’ — i.e., even thy soldiers are all righteous (see Rashi Songs 4:2)

שלל are movables consisting of clothing and ornaments.

בז is booty of movables that are not ornaments.

מלקוח are men and cattle, but in any passage where שבי is written in association with מלקוח, the term שבי applies to men and מלקוח to cattle alone.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 9 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is malqôwach (“prey”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “prey” (malqôwach) contribute to the verse as a whole?
The word “prey” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Numbers 31:12 shares the word «prey» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“all” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «וַיִּקְחוּ֙» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how John Gill's Exposition and Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“all” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.