Hebrew word · H8155

שָׁסַס

vaiyashosu

to plunder

To plunder or loot. The passive means 'be stripped, ransacked.' It is close to šāsâ and bāzaz.

Appears 6 times in 6 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to plunder, spoil

1a) (Qal) to plunder

1b) (Niphal) to be plundered, be rifled

Also means: sha.as (שָׁאַס "to spoil" H7601)

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 Isaiah 13:16

Range of meaning

To plunder or loot. The passive means 'be stripped, ransacked.' It is close to šāsâ and bāzaz.

Against the English

BSB 'looted,' WEB 'ransacked,' ESV and NASB 'plundered' are all accurate. KJV's 'spoiled' meant 'despoiled' in 1611 (see drift).

How it drifted

KJV's 'spoiled' carried the old sense of 'spoil' (plunder, from Latin spoliare). Modern ears hear 'ruined' or 'pampered.'

Used elsewhere in the period

Isa 42:22 describes Israel as 'a people plundered (bāzûz) and looted (šāsûy).' Zech 14:2 has nearly the same pair of clauses as here, said of Jerusalem: 'the houses plundered (wənāšassû) and the women raped (written tiššāgalnāh).'

Similar words

Where it appears

Judges · 1

  1. Judges 2:14 וַיָּשֹׁ֖סּוּ and they plundered

    Then the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

    Here: "And they plundered." This is a closely related form of the same root, placed right after shosim for a sound echo: "plunderers, and they plundered them."

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 17:53 וַיָּשֹׁ֖סּוּ and they plundered

    When the Israelites returned from their pursuit of the Philistines, they plundered their camps.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 89:41 שַׁ֭סֻּהוּ they have plundered him

    All who pass by plunder him; he has become a reproach to his neighbors.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 13:16 יִשַּׁ֙סּוּ֙ they will be plundered

    Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.

    Here: Passive: 'will be stripped, looted.' The verb comes first in this middle clause, so the wording itself is jolted: 'looted will be their houses.'

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 30:16 שֹׁאסַ֙יִךְ֙ [those who] plunder you

    Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries—every one of them—will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.

    Here: 'Those plundering you': raiders who strip a town of goods. It is spelled here with an unusual aleph, a known spelling variant.

Zechariah · 1

  1. Zechariah 14:2 וְנָשַׁ֙סּוּ֙ and they will be plundered

    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.

    Here: Stripped of goods by looters. This explains verse 1: the plunder divided 'in your midst' is Jerusalem's own property, shared out by the enemy in front of its owners.

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