to take captive: to seize people, animals, or goods and carry them off as the spoils of war
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the verb of war and raiding. When an army overran a town or a raiding band swept through, this is what they did to the survivors and their possessions: rounded them up and marched them away. The people taken were almost always the women and children left after the fighting men had fallen, along with whatever flocks, herds, and valuables could be driven off.
The core idea is forced removal as plunder. That is why the same word covers both the human captives and the livestock and property hauled away with them: all of it is loot being carried off by the victors. The related noun for a captive and the word for captivity both come straight from this verb.
Because exile was the great national trauma of ancient Israel, this word also became a poetic image. Poets and prophets could picture the Lord himself taking captives, or speak of captivity being captured and led away, turning the language of conquest into a picture of triumph or rescue.
the phrase rightly captures the movement built into the word: captives are not just seized but marched off to the conqueror's land1Ki 8:46Jer 41:10
Both
both join the act of capturing to the act of taking the captive elsewhere2Ch 28:5
Only carry away captive
the English phrase can blur into the idea of long-term exile, while this word stresses the moment of seizure and removal
“lead captive”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How shavah differs from similar Hebrew words
גָּלָהgoing into exile: the broader word for a population being deported and resettled in a foreign land, focused on the removal and the life away from home rather than the violent act of seizing spoil
Names the violent act of seizing people and goods as plunder in a raid or battle: women, children, and livestock carried off by the victors. The focus is the moment of capture and the captive as spoil.Gen 34:29Num 31:91Sa 30:2
Both
Both describe a defeated population taken from its homeland into captivity in an enemy land. Where they overlap, one stresses the seizing as captives and the other the carrying away into exile, but both name the same fate.1Ki 8:472Ki 17:6
Names the people's removal into exile, the nation uprooted and resettled in a foreign land rather than the moment of seizure. It is the standard word for the deportations of Israel and Judah.2Ki 17:62Ki 24:14Amo 5:5
Carries a whole second range that has nothing to do with captivity: to uncover or lay bare, and so to reveal or disclose. It covers laying bare nakedness, opening someone's eyes or ears, and God making himself or his plans known.Lev 18:6Num 22:311Sa 3:21
בָּזַזto plunder or loot: taking goods and valuables as spoil, with no special focus on carrying off people as captives
Names the carrying off of people as captives, who are led away alive into exile rather than killed or kept where they are.2Ki 5:21Sa 30:22Ch 28:5
Carries the human grief of forced exile, so it becomes the standard word for Israel taken away to a foreign land and for the prayer to be restored.1Ki 8:46Psa 137:3
Both
In the aftermath of battle both happen together: the victors carry off the captured people and seize their goods in one sweep.Gen 34:29Num 31:92Ch 28:8
Names the seizing of goods and property: livestock, silver, valuables, and household possessions hauled off as spoil.Deu 2:35Jos 11:142Ch 20:25
Used for predatory robbery against the helpless, not only wartime spoil: stripping the poor, the widow, and the fatherless of what they own.Isa 10:2Psa 109:11
shavah in the other biblical languages
αἰχμαλωτίζωGreek“to capture”the Greek verb for taking captive, used both for prisoners of war and figuratively for being taken captive by sin or false teaching
Names the concrete act of carrying off captives after a raid or battle, the wholesale seizure of people, women, children, and livestock as spoil.Gen 14:14Num 31:9
Frequently describes a whole nation deported into exile, the people of God led away to a foreign land.1Ki 8:46Jer 13:17
Both
Both name seizing people by force and carrying them off as prisoners of war. The Old Testament word covers the raid and deportation; the New Testament word is used the same way of captives marched off when a city falls.2Ki 5:2Luk 21:24
Reaches beyond war to a figurative capture: sin, a teaching, or a persuasion takes a person prisoner from the inside. Paul speaks of being made a prisoner by the law of sin at work in him.Rom 7:23
Can describe taking thoughts captive, bending every idea into obedience rather than dragging away bodies.2Co 10:5
Used of false teachers who capture vulnerable people and lead them astray, a moral and spiritual seizure rather than a military one.2Ti 3:6
What scholars say about shavah
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat שָׁבָה as a single verb meaning to take captive or carry off as booty, with no homonym split. Its semantic field is warfare and raiding: it governs both human captives and, by natural extension, the livestock and goods seized alongside them (so BDB lists Exod 22:10 and 2 Chr 14:15 under property). The cognate noun שְׁבִי denotes the captive(s) and the abstract state of captivity. It must be distinguished from גָּלָה, which centers on deportation and life in exile rather than the violent act of seizure; the two often describe the same historical events from different angles, and the Deuteronomistic prayer in 1 Kings 8 pairs the captivity vocabulary repeatedly. The figurative uses (Judg 5:12;Ps 68:18, applied to divine triumph) reapply the conquest image without changing the verb's basic sense.