Hebrew word · H2488

חֲלִיצָה

chalitzato

spoil

From ḥālats, 'to draw off, pull off, strip'. The noun means what is stripped from a slain enemy: clothing, weapons, gear. It occurs only here and in 2 Sam 2:21, where Abner tells Asahel to kill one of the young men and 'take his ḥălîtsāh', meaning his armour and equipment.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

what is stripped off (a person in war), armour, spoils, belt

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Judges 14:19

Range of meaning

From ḥālats, 'to draw off, pull off, strip'. The noun means what is stripped from a slain enemy: clothing, weapons, gear. It occurs only here and in 2 Sam 2:21, where Abner tells Asahel to kill one of the young men and 'take his ḥălîtsāh', meaning his armour and equipment.

Against the English

KJV 'spoil' and WEB 'plunder' are close but general. YLT 'armour' follows 2 Sam 2:21. BSB 'apparel' fits the context, since clothing is what Samson needs. None of them keeps the picture of pulling things off a corpse.

Used elsewhere in the period

2 Samuel 2:21 is the only other occurrence and confirms that the word is about stripping the fallen. The verb ḥālats is also used for taking off a sandal (Deut 25:9).

Where it appears

Judges · 1

  1. Judges 14:19 חֲלִ֣יצוֹתָ֔ם spoils their

    Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. And burning with anger, Samson returned to his father’s house,

    Here: Literally 'their strippings', the clothing and gear pulled off the corpses. It sounds almost the same as the next noun, ḥălîpôt, and the wordplay is deliberate.

2 Samuel · 1

  1. 2 Samuel 2:21 חֲלִצָת֑וֹ spoils his

    So Abner told him, “Turn to your right or to your left, seize one of the young men, and take his equipment for yourself.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.