שָׁלָל
plunder
also: prey, spoil, booty fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7998 appears in the Book of Psalms — 2 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Psalms
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
The Hebrew noun שלל centers on the idea of “plunder.” Where the King James Version says “spoil,” newer translations reach for “plunder” (Berean Standard Bible); the renderings breakdown has the detail. It appears 64 verses across 19 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. Debuting at Genesis 49:27, it then recurs through the corpus. Alongside “plunder” the lexicon also lists “prey”, “spoil”, and “booty” — part of its full sense range. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7998 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 64
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 64 distinct verses.
- 19 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 19 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #536
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 536 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 64 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Samuel 9 verses 14%
- Isaiah 7 verses 11%
- 2 Chronicles 6 verses 9%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 64 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 40 verses · 63%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 16 verses · 25%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 8 verses · 13%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Spoil 46×, All the spoil 6×, Prey 6×
- American Standard Version: Spoil 45×, All the spoil 4×, All the plunder 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Plunder 40×, Spoil 12×, Spoils 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Plunder 22×, Spoil 22×, Spoil of 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7998 across 73 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7998 across 73 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7998 across 73 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7998 across 74 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 4 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. prey, of Benj. as wolf Gn 49:27 (poem in J; c. חִלֵּק). e.g. Genesis 49:27
- 2. booty, spoil of war, of all kinds (often ‖ בַּז): incl. garments, gold and silver Jos 7:21 (J), ornaments Ju 8:24, 25, fabrics and women 5:30 a, b, flocks and herds 1 S 30:20; Je 49:32; 2 Ch 15:11, + persons Dt 20:14(×2), garments, food and drink 2 Ch 28:15, etc. (58 times; among these) שְׁלַל הֶעָרִים Dt 2:25; 2 S 12:30; 1 Ch 20:2 and (+ cattle in addition) Dt 3:7, Jos 8:27; 11:14 (both RD), cf. (also of city) Is 8:4; Dt 13:17(×2); Zc 14:1 and (+ cattle) Jos 8:2 (RD), but incl. pers. and cattle Dt 20:14, cf. v 14; fig. of entire nation Je 50:10; Ez 7:21; Zc 2:13; שׁ׳ in symbol. n.pr. מַהֵר שָׁלָל וגו׳ Is 8:1, 3, v. supr. p. 555a; שׁ׳ in metaph. of future majesty of עֶבֶד י׳ Is 53:12; וְהֳיְתָה־לּוֹ נַפְשׁוֹ לְשׁ׳ i.e. life shall be spared, Je 21:9; 38:2; 39:18, cf. 45:5. e.g. Joshua 7:21
- 3. private plunder Is 10:2 (אַלְמָנוֹת שְׁלָלָם), Pr 1:13 and (perhaps in current saying) 16:19. e.g. Isaiah 10:2
- 4. = gain Pr 31:11.—לְצַוְּארֵי שׁ׳ Ju 5:30c is clearly wrong; meaning dub. (v. especially GFM); plausible conj. are לְצַוָּארַי שׁ׳ for my neck as spoil, Reuss Br al., and לְצַוְּארֵי שֵׁגָל for the neck of the queen Ew Be Kit al. (but שֵׁגָל elsewhere late); Now del. שָׁלָל and reads לְצַוָּארָיו. e.g. Proverbs 31:11
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.m. 1 S 30:16 prey, spoil, plunder, booty;—abs. שׁ׳ Gn 49:27 +; cstr. שְׁלַל Ju 5:30 +, sf. שְׁלָלֵךְ Zc 14:1, שְׁלַלְכֶם Is 33:4, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שלל (shâlal) (H7997) — to plunder.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
שָׁלַל I
- [to hang down, be loose,]
- 1. to hang on, to chain. Part. pass. שָׁלוּל. Lam. R. introd. (R. Z’ʿera) כת … שְׁלוּלִים בשלשלאות a troop of old men chained with chains.
- 2. to make chain-stitches, to baste, opp. אחה to sew together with fine stitches. Y. M. Kat. III, 82ᵇ top על כל המתים הוא שׁוֹלֵל … ומאחה וכ׳ for all deceased relatives one may baste the rent after seven days, and sew it after thirty days; ויִשְׁלוֹל יום שביעי וכ׳ let him be permitted to baste it on the seventh day &c.; Treat. S’maḥ. ch. IX; M. Kat. 22ᵇ. Ib. האשה שׁוֹלַלְתּוֹ וכ׳ a woman may baste it immediately (after rending), out of regard for her dignity; ib. 26ᵇ. Ib. דלא ניתן לשׁוֹלְלוֹ because it is not to be basted (during the seven days); a. e.
- to hang with, decorate with.—Part. pass. מְשׁוּלָּל. Mekh. B’shall., s. 1 מְשׁוּלָּלִין בזיין, v. שָׁלִישׁ.
שָׁלַל II
- (b. h.) to draw, capture; to carry off. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XXXVIII; Yalk. Gen. 134 שְׁלָלָהּ וכ׳ he (Shechem) carried her off and slept with her.—Trnsf. (of water) to make inroads. B. Kam. 61ᵃ, a. e. שׁוֹלְלִין, v. שְׁלוּלִית.
- to be bereft (of reason), be senseless. Snh. 97ᵃ (expl. Is. LIX, 15) וסר מרע מִשְׁתּוֹלֵל על הבריות he that departs from evil is considered by people as senseless. e.g. Isaiah 59:15
שָׁלָל I
- preced.) booty, gain. B. Kam. 61ᵃ, v. אֲגַף. Ex. R. s. 18 (ref. to Is. VIII, 3) ומיהר לבוז שְׁלָלָם (ed. Leipz. שלול, read: שְׁלָלוֹ) and he shall hasten to plunder their (his) booty. Mekh. B’shall., Shir., s. 7 [read:] מוחלק אני להם שְׁלָלִי וממוני להם I am assigned to them, my booty and my own property shall be theirs; Yalk. Ex. 249; a. e. e.g. Isaiah 8:3
שָׁלָל II
- (שָׁלַל 1) chain, loose stitch, baste. M. Kat. 26ᵇ הקורע מתוך הש׳ he who rends his garment (in mourning) where it has been stitched; Y. ib. III, 83ᵇ top מן הש׳. Ukts. II, 6 שְׁלַל הכובסין the washers’ materials loosely stitched together; Sabb. 48ᵇ ש׳ של כובסים.—Trnsf. ש׳ של ביצים embryonic eggs laced together with veins; ovary of birds. Tosef. Zab. V, 9; Bets. 7ᵃ
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 48 distinct written forms H7998 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7998, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 62 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 64 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 49:27
- Exodus 15:9
- Numbers 31:11
- Deuteronomy 2:35
- Joshua 7:21
- Judges 5:30
- 1 Samuel 14:30
- 2 Samuel 3:22
- 2 Kings 3:23
- 1 Chronicles 20:2
- 2 Chronicles 14:13
- Esther 3:13
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
