prey: the flesh a predator tears and eats, and by extension what is seized as plunder or simply provided as food
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
At its core this word names the kill a hunting animal tears apart and eats. The picture behind it is a lion pinning down its catch, and most of its appearances belong to that vivid predator scene, whether the lion is a literal beast, a tribe of Israel pictured as a carnivore, or a foreign empire roaring over what it has caught.
From that literal center the word stretches in two directions. When the predator is human, the same noun describes spoil and plunder: the loot a tyrant or invading army drags home. The prophets use this edge of the word to indict kings and officials who feed on their own people.
In its latest uses the violent charge fades almost entirely and the word means "plain food," the provision set on a table. A poet can say God gives this to those who honor him, and a capable woman provides it for her household. Scholars debate how much of the old predator force still echoes in these gentle uses, but the three shades are clearly one word:
what is caught and torn
what is seized and carried off
what is given to be eaten
Nuances
1athe kill a wild animal tears and eats; a predator's catch
carries the act of tearing built into the word, since it is formed from a verb meaning to rend or pluck off, not merely a hunted targetGen 49:9Isa 5:29
Both
both name what a predator hunts and eatsJob 38:39Amo 3:4
Only prey
the English word can suggest a living creature being stalked, but this Hebrew word points more to the kill once it is caught and torn
even when it means a meal, the word keeps a faint memory of being seized and torn, so it can color a household scene with an echo of the huntPro 31:15Psa 111:5
Both
both name what is provided to be eatenMal 3:10Job 24:5
Only food
the plain English word food carries no trace of violence or hunting, which is exactly the charge this Hebrew word can still hold
“spoil”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“meat”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How tereph differs from similar Hebrew words
טָרַףthe verb of this family: the act of tearing or rending, where this noun is the thing torn.
Names the THING that has been torn: the meat a predator has caught, the kill it carries off and eats. It is an object you can drag away, devour, or set before young.Gen 49:9Job 4:11Amo 3:4
Stretches beyond a literal carcass to mean food or provision in general, the portion a hunter or householder brings home to feed dependents.Psa 111:5Pro 31:15Mal 3:10
Pictures a lion crouched over the kill it will not give up, the prize in the predator's grip rather than the motion of catching it.Isa 31:4Num 23:24
Both
Both belong to the same scene of a beast killing its quarry, and prophets pair them together when they brand corrupt leaders as predators who seize and devour their own people.Ezk 22:27Ezk 22:25
Both appear in the lion imagery of a young lion learning to hunt, where the act of tearing produces the kill it then eats.Ezk 19:3Nam 2:12
Names the violent ACT of seizing and ripping flesh, the verb of a predator at work. It is something a beast or attacker does to a victim.Gen 37:33Psa 22:13Hos 5:14
Can be turned into a picture of God striking and then healing, where the same word for ripping is used and then reversed, so the action itself is the focus.Hos 6:1Job 16:9
Used for an animal killed in the field that a hired keeper is not liable for, naming the event of the killing rather than the carcass left behind.Exo 22:13
טְרֵפָהthe related feminine noun, narrowed to a technical sense: an animal mauled by wild beasts, which the law forbids as food, where this word ranges freely across prey, plunder, and provision.
Names the living quarry a predator hunts down: the animal a lion stalks, seizes, and carries off while it is still its catch.Gen 49:9Psa 104:21Amo 3:4
Stretches to the food a hunter secures for those who depend on him, the provision a parent or a household gathers and brings home.Pro 31:15Psa 111:5Job 38:39
Pictures a violent, plundering city or ruler as a beast that drags off spoil, an image of predatory bloodshed.Nam 3:1Ezk 22:27Ezk 19:3
Both
Both come from the same root for tearing, so they sit side by side in one breath: the lion fills its den with what it has caught and torn.Nam 2:12
Names what a predatory animal kills and eats: the torn flesh a lion or other beast seizes for food. The word belongs to the world of hunting and the food chain, not the battlefield.Psa 104:21Job 38:39Amo 3:4
Used as a vivid picture of human predators: a violent ruler or oppressor is compared to a lion who tears prey, turning the animal image into a charge of brutal greed.Ezk 22:27Nam 2:12Psa 76:4
Can mean simply the food a household provides, the catch brought home to feed the family, with no violence in view at all.Pro 31:15Mal 3:10
Both
Both name something seized by force and carried off by the stronger party, the taking that follows a kill or a conquest.Gen 49:9Gen 49:27
Both can stand for the loot a ruthless leader or nation accumulates, so each becomes a word for plunder amassed by the violent and the powerful.Nam 2:13Isa 10:6
Names the goods carried off after a military victory: the property, valuables, and captives the winning side strips from the defeated. It is a battlefield word for the takings of war.Num 31:11Jos 8:21Sa 30:19
Often the subject of fair division: rules and disputes about who shares in the captured goods, the soldier and the one who stayed with the supplies alike.1Sa 30:22Jos 22:8Jdg 5:30
Becomes a picture of unexpected gain or treasured reward: finding war plunder stands for the joy of a great windfall, even the delight of treasuring God's word.Psa 119:162Isa 9:3Pro 16:19
the game a human hunter catches to eat: the venison Esau stalks and cooks for his fatherGen 27:3Gen 27:19Gen 27:25
belongs to the world of the skilled hunter, naming both the man who hunts and the catch he brings homeGen 10:9Gen 25:28Pro 12:27
widens to ordinary travel provisions, the stock of food a person carries or lays inJos 9:5Jos 9:14Neh 13:15
tereph in the other biblical languages
ἁρπαγήGreek“plunder”the Greek noun for seizure and plunder; the Septuagint reaches for it (and similar words) when this Hebrew word means a predator's catch or loot.
Names what a wild animal tears and eats: the prey a lion catches and the torn meat it feeds on. This is the dominant picture, drawn from the hunt rather than from human crime.Gen 49:9Job 4:11Psa 104:21Amo 3:4
Stretches gently to mean simple food or provision that God supplies, with the violence drained out: the meat a household is fed, and the rations God gives.Psa 111:5Pro 31:15Mal 3:10
Both
Both name something taken by force: in the Greek word it is goods seized from other people, and in the Hebrew word it is the catch a predator seizes and carries off.Luk 11:39Psa 124:6
Names the human act of robbing others and the goods gained by it: greed, extortion, and the seizing of property. Jesus says the cup is full of what was grabbed from people, and Hebrews speaks of believers whose possessions were confiscated.Mat 23:25Luk 11:39Heb 10:34
Carries a moral charge against people: it is the inner disposition of grasping that fills a greedy heart, set in contrast to what is clean and just.Mat 23:25Luk 11:39
βρῶσιςGreek“eating”the Greek word for food or eating; the Septuagint switches to it when this Hebrew word carries its late sense of plain provision.
Its core picture is meat torn and seized by a hunting animal, flesh ripped from a kill. This violent image of capture is absent from the Greek word, which is simply food.Gen 49:9Job 38:39Psa 104:21
Used as a vivid image for plunder and the spoils of violence, what a ruler or predator-like oppressor grabs by force, a sense the plain Greek word for food never takes.Ezk 22:25Ezk 22:27Nam 2:12
Both
Both can name plain food that sustains a household or a people: the Hebrew prey-word softens in later use to mean simply the food God or a provider sets out, lining up with the Greek word's everyday sense of food to eat.Psa 111:5Jhn 6:55
Both appear in pictures of daily provision: bread given out to those who depend on the provider, food brought into the house so no one goes without.Pro 31:15Jhn 4:32
Names the act of eating itself, the taking in of food, not just the food on the plate. It is the live verb-like idea of consuming, which the Hebrew prey-word never carries.Rom 14:171Co 8:4
Stretches to the slow eating-away of decay: the rust and corrosion that consume earthly treasure, a destructive eating with no parallel in the Hebrew word for what a predator seizes.Mat 6:19Mat 6:20
Repeatedly set against lasting, spiritual nourishment: perishable food that spoils is contrasted with food that endures, a tension the Hebrew word does not raise.Jhn 6:27Jhn 4:32
What scholars say about tereph
BDB organizes the family with the masculine noun טֶרֶף carrying two senses, the dominant "prey of a lion" and a "food" sense it explicitly marks as late (Job 24:5;Ps 111:5;Prov 31:15;Mal 3:10), alongside a separate adjectival טָרָף "fresh-plucked" reserved for Genesis 8:11 and the feminine cultic-legal טְרֵפָה. HALOT and Gesenius (18th ed.) keep the four-lemma split; DCH brackets etymology on its distributional method; TWOT (Coppes) and TDOT stress the theological move whereby YHWH supplies prey to the lions (Ps 104:21;Job 38:39) and so the predator's kill becomes covenant provision (Ps 111:5;Mal 3:10). Speiser notes the recurrent טֶרֶף // שָׁלָל parallelism. The Septuagint registers the shift, rendering θήρα / ἁρπαγή for prey and βρῶσις / βρώματα for provision. The root is a Northwest-Semitic-plus-Arabic isogloss with no secure Akkadian or Ugaritic cognate; Aramaic and Syriac טַרְפָּא "leaf" and Arabic طريف "fresh" drive the still-unsettled Genesis 8:11 debate, which concerns a separate form and not the occurrences classified here.
Where scholars disagree about tereph
Whether the late uses of the word (Psalm 111:5;Proverbs 31:15;Malachi 3:10) mean plain food with the predator metaphor fully faded, or still carry a deliberate, live echo of the lion's kill.
majorityThe metaphor is essentially faded to plain food in these passages, though the wider poem can reanimate it.; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31 (Anchor Yale Bible); BDB, s.v. טֶרֶף
minorityAt least in Proverbs 31:15 the image is a deliberate, live one: a lioness providing prey for her household.; Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs (NICOT)
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.