Bible Strands
Ezekiel 38:12
in order to seize the spoil and carry off the plunder, to turn a hand against the desolate places now inhabited and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and possessions and who live at the center of the land.’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The invading commander declares his campaign’s objective to the gathered nations centered in the land. He frames the attack as a calculated raid against a secure, unwalled population that has recently recovered from war.
The words — The Hebrew לִשְׁלֹ֥ל (li/sh.Lol) and שָׁלָ֖ל (sha.Lal) both denote the act of plundering and the spoils themselves. The phrase לְ/הָשִׁ֨יב יָדְ/ךָ֜ עַל־ (le./ha.Shiv ya.de./Kha 'al-) literally means to turn your hand against the desolate places (חֳרָב֣וֹת, cho.ra.Vot).
The thread — This motif of military plunder appears in Isaiah 10:6, where God commissions a nation to take spoils from a godless people. Ezekiel 29:19 similarly grants Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as wages, emphasizing the seizure of livestock and goods.
Why it lands — The text records the invader’s explicit economic motive: seizing livestock, possessions, and silver from a centralized population. Readers must recognize that the prophecy frames the coming conflict as a material raid rather than a purely spiritual confrontation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 10:6 I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
- Ezekiel 29:19 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will carry off its wealth, seize its spoil, and remove its plunder. This will be the wages for his army.
- Ezekiel 38:8 After a long time you will be summoned. In the latter years you will enter a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and all now dwell securely.
- Judges 9:37 Then Gaal spoke up again, “Look, people are coming down from the center of the land, and one company is coming by way of the Diviners’ Oak.”
- Isaiah 1:24 Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah, I will be relieved of My foes and avenge Myself on My enemies.
- Jeremiah 30:16 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.
- Jeremiah 32:43 And fields will be bought in this land about which you are saying, ‘It is a desolation, without man or beast; it has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans.’
- Jeremiah 33:12 This is what the LORD of Hosts says: In this desolate place, without man or beast, and in all its cities, there will once more be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.
- Ezekiel 36:33 This is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be resettled and the ruins to be rebuilt.
- Amos 1:8 I will cut off the ruler of Ashdod and the one who wields the scepter in Ashkelon. I will turn My hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord GOD.