spoil: the goods, animals, and captives carried off as the prize of victory
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the standard biblical word for what a winning side hauls away after a battle or a raid. It covers the whole haul at once: silver and gold, clothing and weapons, herds and flocks, and the people taken alive. The word does not name a single object but the entire seized estate, which is why it is so often paired with a verb for dividing it up among the victors.
From that root sense the word stretches in two directions. It can mean ordinary gain or profit won by effort rather than war, the prize that comes to someone who works or trusts well. And in a striking turn it can name a person's own life as the only thing they escape a disaster with: when everything else is lost, bare survival is counted as the one piece of plunder carried off.
What ties these together is the idea of something valuable that ends up in your hands as the outcome of a contest or a crisis. It is always a prize gained, whether the prize is an enemy's wealth, an honest profit, or one's own skin.
Nuances
1aplunder taken in war: goods, livestock, and captives seized from a defeated enemy and divided among the victors
the Hebrew can also mean honest gain or profit won apart from any raid, which "plunder" cannot carryPro 31:11
Both
both name the wealth seized by force from those who have been overcomeIsa 10:6
Only plunder
"plunder" in English always sounds lawless or shameful, but the biblical word treats spoil as the normal, just reward of a battle won
“booty”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“prey”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“prize”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How shalal differs from similar Hebrew words
בַּזnames the plundering as prey snatched in a raid, stressing the violent act of seizing; שָׁלָל leans on the captured goods themselves as the victor's prize.
Often the people themselves who are seized as prey: children, a flock, a whole nation handed over to be carried off.Num 14:3Num 14:31Ezk 34:8
Pictures God's people as helpless prey that no one rescues, an image of judgment and abandonment.Isa 42:222Ki 21:14Jer 2:14
בִּזָּהthe booty viewed as the pillaged property of the defeated; close to שָׁלָל but tied more tightly to the act of despoiling than to the prize as reward.
The booty the Jews pointedly refused to touch in the Esther story, where leaving it untaken is the moral point.Est 9:10Est 9:15Est 9:16
Clusters in the later writings (Chronicles, Ezra, Daniel) for plunder hauled off, including a nation given over as plunder under judgment.2Ch 25:13Ezr 9:7Dan 11:33
מַלְקוֹחַthe part of the spoil that is taken alive, captives and livestock seized as the catch; שָׁלָל is the whole haul, goods and people together.
The act of plundering itself, the verb of stripping a place or people of their goods.Ezk 26:12Ezk 39:10Hab 2:8
Used for the just reversal in which the plunderers are themselves plundered, and even for deliberately letting grain fall so the poor may glean it.Hab 2:8Zec 2:8Rut 2:16
Names concrete captured goods, the livestock, silver, garments, and captives seized when a city or army falls.Num 31:11Jos 7:21Deu 20:14
Is morally neutral and even celebrated, plunder lawfully divided among the victors and an occasion for rejoicing.Psa 68:12Isa 9:3Gen 49:27
Both
Both describe wealth gained at another's expense, seized or extorted rather than earned, and both are pictured as loot the wicked stockpile from ambush.Pro 1:19Pro 1:13
Names the greedy motive itself, the craving for advantage that the Bible condemns as a vice; it is what disqualifies a corrupt judge or ruler.Exo 18:21Pro 15:27Hab 2:9
Runs as an abstract calculation of profit, the weighing of what one stands to get out of a thing.Gen 37:26Psa 30:9Mal 3:14
Belongs to the world of dishonest dealing and bribery rather than the battlefield, the crooked take skimmed by prophets, priests, and princes.Jer 6:13Ezk 22:27
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
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 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
shalal in the other biblical languages
σκῦλονGreek“plunder”the Greek word for spoils stripped from a beaten foe; like שָׁלָל it is the plunder as the victor's prize, used of the strong man's goods carried off.
The standard Old Testament word for war booty, used constantly of the goods, livestock, and people carried off after a victory in battle.Num 31:11Deu 20:141Sa 30:19
Reaches beyond the battlefield into everyday speech: the prize a robber hopes to seize, and the gain a trusting husband finds in his wife.Pro 1:13Pro 31:11
Both
Both name the goods stripped from a defeated enemy and divided among the victors. The Hebrew word fills the Old Testament with this picture of dividing the spoil, while the Greek word draws on the same image when a conqueror parts out what he has seized.Gen 49:27Luk 11:22
Appears just once in the New Testament, in a parable picture: when a stronger one overpowers a strong man he carries off the loser's armor and divides up his goods.Luk 11:22
What scholars say about shalal
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat שָׁלָל as a single noun from the root שׁלל, meaning the spoil or booty of war: the goods, livestock, and captives taken from a defeated enemy and then divided among the victors. They note its frequent pairing with the verb חָלַק (to divide) and with the near-synonyms בַּז and בִּזָּה. The lexica record the natural extension to gain or profit won apart from war (Proverbs, Psalm 119:162) and the fixed idiom נֶפֶשׁ לְשָׁלָל, one's life as spoil, for escaping a disaster with bare survival as the only thing won. TDOT discusses spoil within the larger biblical theology of holy war and the disposal of what is captured.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. שָׁלָלlexicon
BDB, s.v. שָׁלָלlexicon
DCH, s.v. שָׁלָלlexicon
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), s.v. שׁללdictionary