Numbers 31:53

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

([For] the men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.)

World English Bible · Public Domain

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בָּזְז֖וּ

bâzaz

H962

“to plunder”

Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural

Appears 43× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 34:27

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 225

to spoil, plunder, prey upon, seize - (Qal) to spoil, plunder, despoil - (Niphal) to be spoiled, plundered - (Pual) to be taken as spoil

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 →

5: words
3: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

בָּזְז֖וּ to plunder H962 occurs in 39 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
3 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

בָּזְז֖וּ Qal · Perfect

Repetition

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

אַנְשֵׁי֙ man H376 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 11 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 5 Hebrew tokens and 8 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 31:53 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.
Numbers 31:32 Now the prey, over and above the booty which the men of war took, was six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep,

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 31:53 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אַנְשֵׁי֙ הַצָּבָ֔א בָּזְז֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ לֽוֹ

([For] the men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.)

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 31:53 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ ἀνήρ ὁ πολεμιστής προνομεύω ἕκαστος ἑαυτοῦ

For the men of war took plunder every one for himself.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

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)

גַבְרֵי דְחֵילָא בָּזוּ גְבַר לְנַפְשֵׁיהּ

(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)

גוּבְרִין דְחֵילָא בְּזָזוּ גְבַר לְנַפְשֵׁיהּ

For the men of the host had taken spoil, every man for himself.

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 31:53 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 →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Num 31:53 ([For] the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself.)

Ver. 53. For the men of war had taken spoil.] And kept what they caught to themselves. The Turks, when they had taken Constantinople, wondered at the wealth thereof - which the citizens would not be drawn to part with for their own preservation - and were so enriched therewith, that it is a proverb amongst them at this day, if any grow suddenly rich, to say, "He hath been at the sacking of Constantinople." {a}

{a} Turk. Hist., 347.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

And gave no portion to their captains.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This verse seems to imply that the soldiers, as distinct from the officers (compare Num 31:49), did not make any offering from their plunder. Of course besides the gold there would be much spoil of less precious materials; see Num 31:20, Num 31:22.

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

53. The men of war — The common soldiers seem not to have contributed to this memorial offering. Possibly all the golden booty was a perquisite of the officers, and the privates took the less valuable spoil.

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

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 5 words (3 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bâzaz (“to plunder”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to plunder” (bâzaz) shape what this verse is saying?
Genesis 34:27 shares the word «to plunder» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“man” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «בָּזְז֖וּ» is Qal Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 5 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
“man” occurs 2× in this single verse.
3 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 5 words in this verse.