sha.lal denotes goods seized or taken after conflict, and in several sayings a spared life is treated as such a gain.

The term most often identifies goods, livestock, valuables, or other possessions taken in military action, raiding, or plundering. In four sayings about escape from judgment, it also describes a person's life as the gain retained through survival.

1. Goods taken in conflict or plundering · dominant

   The noun names what is seized, carried away, divided, or distributed after conflict. In Deuteronomy 20:14 the APB renders a clause about taking everything in a captured city and eating what was taken from enemies; in Joshua 7:21 it renders the items seen, coveted, and hidden in a tent as goods taken from among the captured property. In 2 Chronicles 20:25 the construct-form noun occurs as Jehoshaphat's people take abundant goods and precious articles.

   Deuteronomy 20:14Joshua 7:211 Samuel 14:322 Samuel 3:222 Chronicles 20:25Ezekiel 38:13
2. Life retained as a prize of survival · occasional

   In these judgment sayings, the absolute-form noun is applied to a person's life rather than to material goods. In Jeremiah 21:9 the APB renders the survivor's life as something retained after going out to the besieging Chaldeans, and in Jeremiah 39:18 it renders a promised deliverance from the sword as the recipient's life becoming his spoil.

   Jeremiah 21:9Jeremiah 38:2Jeremiah 39:18Jeremiah 45:5

In the Anselm Project Bible: Across the verses, the APB commonly uses "spoil," "plunder," or "plundered" for clauses about seized possessions, while Jeremiah 38:2 uses "a prize of war" for the life-preservation saying. These renderings confirm the clauses' overall presentation rather than supplying a separate definition for each English term.