{"id":70538,"date":"2020-02-22T16:27:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T14:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70538"},"modified":"2023-10-16T12:48:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T09:48:48","slug":"the-spoils-of-war-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-spoils-of-war-your-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spoils Of War: Your Life\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[361,401],"acf":{"old_id":"70538","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64450,"related_cahpter":"421","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Saving lives through surrender\r\n\r\n","content":"

In chapter 21, Jeremiah tells King Zedekiah, and the other besieged residents of Jerusalem, that under these dire circumstances it\u2019s in their interest to surrender to the Babylonians.\u00a0<\/span>He presents the alternatives in this way: <\/span><\/p>\n

Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever leaves and goes over to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live; he shall at least gain his life.\u201d (Jeremiah 21:9)<\/span><\/p>\n

The final part of the verse is somewhat cryptic \u2013 \u201che shall at least gain his life.\u201d An alternate translation, found in the Koren Jerusalem Bible is \u201chis life shall be to him for booty.\u201d Those translations don\u2019t appear to be synonymous. What is the source of the debate?<\/span><\/p>\n

The difficult word in the original is <\/span>shalal<\/span><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 \u201chis life will be for <\/span>shalal<\/span><\/em>.\u201d That word has a number of meanings, and the translations follow the different opinions found in the commentators.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a noun, <\/span>shalal<\/span><\/em>\u00a0generally means \u201cspoils, booty, plunder.\u201d This is how the medieval commentator Radak understands the verse \u2013 those that stay will gain their lives as if they plundered them. The Koren translation follows Radak\u2019s explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the root of <\/span>shalal<\/span><\/em>\u00a0has an additional, different meaning. In modern Hebrew it means \u201cto negate\u201d, and so something <\/span>shelili<\/span><\/em>\u00a0is negative. In a broader sense, this root means “to remove; to refuse, to negate, to deny.” And in this way it is connected to spoils of war – when an army took the spoils, they “removed” them from those they defeated.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how the commentator Rashi understands our verse. He says just like a plunderer takes the booty and goes away, so too will your death be \u201cremoved\u201d from those of the slaughtered. This seems to be the basis of the first translation \u201che shall at least gain his life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One other form of that verb is <\/span>hishtolel<\/span><\/em>. Today it means “to misbehave, to act unruly”, but it originally meant “to be deranged”, and in his dictionary, the linguist Eliezer Ben Yehuda indicates it therefore meant “to be lacking sanity\u201d (i.e. the sanity is negated). \u201cActing unruly\u201d would certainly have been an accurate description of the Babylonian invaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Gaspero and Sayce,\u00a0 History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria<\/em>, 1903 \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":70540,"id":70540,"title":"jer21-spoils","filename":"jer21-spoils.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer21-spoils.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-spoils-of-war-your-life\/jer21-spoils\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer21-spoils","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":70538,"date":"2020-02-22 14:26:49","modified":"2020-02-22 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