StrongerBible

malqo'aḥ

מַלְקוֹחַ

HebrewH4455“prey, booty, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Num 31:11Num 31:12Num 31:26Num 31:27Num 31:32Psa 22:15(16)Isa 49:24Isa 49:25
Root family
Word studymal-KO-akhnoun

What malqo'aḥ means

1

captured living plunder: the people and animals a victor takes alive and keeps

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The word is built on the ordinary verb for taking, and it names what gets taken alive. A battle report could sweep the goods, the herds, and the prisoners together under one heading, "spoil" (שָׁלָל), but this word picks out the breathing part of the haul: the men, women, children, and animals led away rather than carried away.

Numbers 31 uses it as an accounting term. The soldiers bring back the prisoners, the living catch, and the goods; Moses is then told to take a headcount of the catch "in man and in beast", split it evenly between the men who fought and the rest of the people, and set a share aside for the LORD. Everything the word covers can be counted, fed, and handed over, because it is alive.

Isaiah takes the same word and turns it into a challenge. If a strong warrior is holding a catch, can anyone pry it loose from him? The expected answer is no, and that is the point: God says he will do it anyway, and the prisoners of the strong will be taken back. The same picture of a stronger one stripping the strong shows up later in Jesus' saying about the armed householder who is overpowered and has his goods divided (Luke 11:21-22).

Nuances

1athe living catch of a war: the captured people and livestock, gathered up to be counted and shared out
Num 31:11Num 31:12Num 31:26Num 31:27Num 31:32
1bwhat a captor holds in his grip: a prisoner who cannot get free unless someone stronger takes him back
Isa 49:24Isa 49:25
2

the jaws: the inside of the mouth, named as the part that takes food in

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested

A second word is spelled exactly like the first and has nothing to do with war. It appears once, in Psalm 22:15, where a sufferer says his tongue is stuck to his jaws. Hebrew puts it in the form it reserves for things that come in matched pairs, like eyes and hands, which suits a mouth with a side on the left and a side on the right.

Both words go back to the same verb for taking, and the link is easy to see: plunder is what is taken by force, and the mouth is what takes food in. A shared origin does not make them one word. In practice they sit as far apart as English "spoil" the prize of battle and "spoil" the rotting fruit.

Scholars differ over which part of the mouth is meant. Most read "jaws", which fits a tongue glued fast in a mouth burned dry; others prefer the gums or the soft inner mouth, close to the word for the palate (חֵךְ), since that is the surface a parched tongue actually sticks to. The ancient Greek translation read it as the throat. The force of the line is not in doubt either way: the speaker is so dried out that he can no longer speak.

Psa 22:15(16)

Disputed

Which part of the mouth this second מַלְקוֹחַ denotes in its sole attestation, Psalm 22:15 (MT 22:16).

  • majorityThe dual denotes the jaws, the bony frame of the mouth; the image is a tongue adhering to a mouth desiccated by thirst.; BDB, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַ; DCH, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַ
  • minorityThe term denotes the softer inner mouth, the gums or palate, the surface to which a parched tongue would actually adhere; the Septuagint's λάρυγξ (throat) points in a comparable direction.; HALOT, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַ

What scholars say about malqo'aḥ

The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) list two homonymous nouns מַלְקוֹחַ, both derived from the root לקח. The first denotes booty taken alive in war; the second, attested only in the dual at Psalm 22:16 (English 22:15), denotes part of the mouth. In Numbers 31 the term functions as a technical accounting category in the disposition of the Midianite spoil: v. 11 defines it as בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה, v. 26 orders a census of the מַלְקוֹחַ הַשְּׁבִי, v. 27 its bipartite division between combatants and congregation, and v. 32 sets it over against the בַּז the troops had already taken, with the enumeration in vv. 32 to 35 covering flocks, herds, asses, and persons. Milgrom's JPS commentary treats the passage as a priestly regulation of war booty and its levy. In Isaiah 49:24 to 25 the noun stands in parallel with שְׁבִי in a rhetorical question about wresting captives from a גִּבּוֹר, a passage whose text is complicated by the MT צַדִּיק in v. 24 against the עָרִיץ read by 1QIsaa and the versions and adopted by most modern commentators; the semantics of מַלְקוֹחַ itself are unaffected. For the homonym, TDOT's treatment of לקח notes the derivational logic (the organ that receives food), while the Septuagint's λάρυγξ at Ps 21:16 LXX reflects an early reading toward the throat.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. מַלְקוֹחַlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. לָקַחtheological-dictionary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary), on Numbers 31commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55 (Anchor Yale Bible), on Isaiah 49:24-25commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of מַלְקוֹחַ

m s absolute

מַּלְקוֹחַ, מַלְקוֹחַ

Num 31:11, Num 31:12, Num 31:27, Num 31:32, Isa 49:24

m s construct

מַלְקוֹחַ

Num 31:26, Isa 49:25

m d construct

מַלְקוֹחָי

Psa 22:15