Word study
Loot
8 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: loot, looted, looting. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.
At a glance
How often each original word is translated “loot” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- שָׁסָה shâsâhspoil, plundertranslated this way 3 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H8154Verb · Translated: plundered 3, plunderers 2, plunder 2, looting 1Full study and all 10 verses →
1 Samuel 23:1 Now it was reported to David, “Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and looting the threshing floors.”
Isaiah 17:14 In the evening, there is sudden terror! Before morning, they are no more! This is the portion of those who loot us and the lot of those who plunder us.
- שָׁסַס shâsasid.translated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H8155Verb · Translated: plundered 3, looted 2, plunder 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Isaiah 13:16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.
Zechariah 14:2 For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.
- שָׁלַל shâlaldraw outtranslated this way 2 times of its 15 uses · Strong’s H7997Verb · Translated: plunder 3, seize 2, plundered 2Full study and all 12 verses →
Ezekiel 39:10 They will not gather wood from the countryside or cut it from the forests, for they will use the weapons for fuel. They will loot those who looted them and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord GOD.
- שָׁלָל shâlâlprey, spoil, plunder, bootytranslated this way 2 times of its 73 uses · Strong’s H7998Noun · Translated: plunder 42, spoil 13, spoils 5, like a spoil of war 3Full study and all 64 verses →
Ezekiel 7:21 And I will hand these things over as plunder to foreigners and loot to the wicked of the earth, who will defile them.
Daniel 11:24 In a time of peace, he will invade the richest provinces and do what his fathers and forefathers never did. He will lavish plunder, loot, and wealth on his followers, and he will plot against the strongholds — but only for a time.
- בָּזַז bâzazspoil, plundertranslated this way 1 time of its 42 uses · Strong’s H962Verb · Translated: plunder 12, plundered 8, carried 3, carry 2Full study and all 38 verses →
Genesis 34:27 Jacob’s other sons came upon the slaughter and looted the city, because their sister had been defiled.
- מְשִׁסָּה meshissâhbooty, plundertranslated this way 1 time of its 4 uses · Strong’s H4933Noun · Translated: spoil 1, loot 1, prey 1, plundered 1Full study and all 4 verses →
Isaiah 42:22 But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”
- בַּז bazspoiling, robbery; spoil, bootytranslated this way 1 time of its 21 uses · Strong’s H957Noun · Translated: plunder 12, prey 4Full study and all 21 verses →
Ezekiel 38:13 Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will ask, ‘Have you come to capture the plunder? Have you assembled your hordes to carry away loot, to make off with silver and gold, to take cattle and goods, to seize great spoil?’
- שָׁלַח shâlachsendtranslated this way 1 time of its 829 uses · Strong’s H7971Verb · Translated: sent 334, send 126, go 43, sending 19Full study and all 783 verses →
How to study a word well
- Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
- Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.
Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.