Spoils

Spoils are the goods, livestock, captives, and treasure that a victorious army takes from a defeated enemy. Scripture treats spoils as both a material reality of warfare and a regulated category of property: prey is to be counted, divided, dedicated, sometimes wholly burned, and never simply seized at will. The same word covers a chieftain's raid, a tribal extermination, a royal campaign, and a Maccabean rout of a Seleucid camp.

Capture in the Patriarchal and Exodus Narratives

Spoils first appear in the abduction of Lot. When the four-king coalition sacks the cities of the plain, "they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way" (Gen 14:11), and "they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed" (Gen 14:12). The same combination of goods and persons is what Abram will pursue and recover.

The sons of Jacob extend the practice in their attack on Shechem after the rape of Dinah: "They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field" (Gen 34:28). The Exodus departure is described in the same idiom of plunder: "And Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And they despoiled the Egyptians" (Ex 12:36).

Prey, Booty, and the Law of Division

The Midianite campaign in Numbers 31 is the longest single legal treatment of spoils in the Torah. The first action is capture: "And the sons of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods, they took for a prey" (Num 31:9). The settlements themselves are razed: "And all their cities in the places in which they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire" (Num 31:10).

Yahweh then gives Moses a procedure. The prey is to be inventoried and split in half between the warriors who fought and the rest of the congregation, with a tribute taken off each half — one in five hundred from the soldiers' share for the priest, and one in fifty from the people's share for the Levites (Num 31:25-30). The chapter then enumerates the count: 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, 61,000 donkeys, and 32,000 women who had not had sex with a man (Num 31:32-35), with the corresponding tributes (Num 31:36-47). Beyond the regulated prey, "the men of war had taken booty, every man for himself" (Num 31:53), and from this private take the captains brought "Yahweh's oblation, what every man has gotten, of jewels of gold, ankle-chains, and bracelets, signet-rings, earrings, and armlets, to make atonement for our souls before Yahweh" (Num 31:50). Moses and Eleazar deposited the gold "into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the sons of Israel before Yahweh" (Num 31:54).

Deuteronomy generalizes the same pattern of partial seizure: in the campaign against Sihon, "only the cattle we took for a prey to ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we had taken" (Deut 2:35); and in the law of distant cities, "the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all its spoil, you will take for a prey to yourself; and you will eat the spoil of your enemies, which Yahweh your God has given you" (Deut 20:14).

Spoil Devoted to Destruction

When a city has gone over to other gods, the law inverts the rule: nothing may be kept. "And you will gather all the spoil of it into the midst of its street, and will burn with fire the city, and all its spoil every bit, to Yahweh your God: and it will be a heap forever; it will not be built again" (Deut 13:16). Spoil here functions as a sacrifice to be wholly consumed.

The Amalekite campaign is the narrative test of the rule. Saul's troops keep "the best of the sheep and of the oxen" and Saul defends the violation by claiming a sacrificial intent: "the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God; and the rest we have completely destroyed" (1 Sa 15:15). Spoil retained from a devoted enemy, even for ostensibly sacrificial ends, is the very offense Samuel rebukes.

Battlefield Plunder in the Conquest and Monarchy

After Sisera's defeat the women of his household imagine a domestic scene built on spoil: "Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? A womb, [even] two wombs for each chief [able-bodied] man. A spoil of dyed garments for Sisera. A spoil of embroidered dyed garments, [even] double embroidered dyed garments for the neck of the queen" (Judg 5:30). The motifs of dyed garments, captive women, and divided shares are treated as the natural reward of victory.

The hunger of plunderers is itself a danger. After Jonathan's pass at Michmash, "the people flew on the spoil, and took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground; and the people ate them with the blood" (1 Sa 14:32) — a violation of the dietary command in the rush for meat. After Goliath, "the sons of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines, and they plundered their camp" (1 Sa 17:53). David's foraging expeditions yield the same kind of haul: "the slaves of David and Joab came from a foray, and brought in a great spoil with them" (2 Sa 3:22).

David also sets the precedent that spoil is to be shared with the rear echelon. To the men who would deny supplies to those who stayed behind with the baggage, he answers, "as his share is that goes down to the battle, so will his share be that tarries by the baggage: they will share alike" (1 Sa 30:24).

The pattern continues into the divided monarchy. The Aramean siege of Samaria collapses, and "the people went out, and plundered the camp of the Syrians" (2 Kgs 7:16) — a glut of spoil large enough to drop grain prices to the level Elisha had announced. Asa's pursuit of the Ethiopians yields a slaughter "before Yahweh, and before his host; and they carried away very much booty" (2 Chr 14:13), and "they sacrificed to Yahweh in that day, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep" (2 Chr 15:11). Jehoshaphat's victory by song over the Moabite-Ammonite coalition is the most extravagant account: "they found beasts of burden, in abundance, and riches, and clothing, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in taking the spoil, it was so much" (2 Chr 20:25).

Dedication of Spoil to the Sanctuary

The chronicler treats spoil as a recurring source of capital for the temple. The Korahite gatekeepers' families have charge of treasuries that hold what David and his commanders "dedicated out of the spoil won in battles to repair the house of Yahweh" (1 Chr 26:27). The pattern set by Moses with the Midianite gold reappears as a permanent funding stream: warfare yields metal, metal is dedicated, and the sanctuary is built and rebuilt out of it.

The Maccabean Wars

In 1 Maccabees the language of spoils is the language of empire. Alexander "fought many battles, and took strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth" (1Ma 1:2), and "went through even to the ends of the earth, and took the spoils of many nations, and the earth was quiet before him" (1Ma 1:3). His successors continue the same practice: Antiochus's lieutenants "took the strong cities in the land of Egypt: and he took the spoils of the land of Egypt" (1Ma 1:19).

The same idiom is then turned against Israel. The Seleucid commanders "come against us with a multitude of insult, and of lawlessness, to destroy us, and our wives, and our children, and to take our spoils" (1Ma 3:20). When Judas defeats Gorgias, the script reverses: "Judas returned to take the spoils of the camp, and they got much gold, and silver, and blue silk, and purple of the sea, and great riches" (1Ma 4:23). The Seleucid court reports the Jewish victories in inventory terms — that the Jews "had grown strong by the armor, and power, and store of spoils, which they had gotten out of the camps which they had destroyed" (1Ma 6:6). Spoil is the visible measure of which side Yahweh is now fighting for.

Ben Sira's praise of Joshua summarizes the older conquest tradition in the same key: "Who was [able] to stand before him When he fought the wars of Yahweh?" (Sir 46:3). At Gibeon "he cast them down upon the hostile people. And in going down he destroyed those who rose up, That all the nations [devoted to] destruction might know That Yahweh was watching their fighting" (Sir 46:6); and David, in his turn, "subdued the enemy round about, And he destroyed the cities of the Philistines, And broke in pieces their power to this day" (Sir 47:7). The Maccabean and Sirach accounts share the conviction that the spoils of a righteous war belong, ultimately, to Yahweh.