Misinterpretations of this passage frequently depict the Israelites as barbaric raiders driven by avarice, overlooking the specific divine mandate for total destruction of the inhabitants as judgment on their iniquity and the limited taking of non-human spoils; others erroneously universalize it to endorse plunder or ethnic violence in secular conflicts, stripping away its covenantal context of God's holy war to possess the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 2:35
King James Version (1769)
35 Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.
Deuteronomy 2:35 reveals the core truth of Israel's obedience to God's command in their conquest of Sihon's territory east of the Jordan, where they took only the livestock and goods as spoil for themselves while devoting the people to destruction as holy war (herem), emphasizing divine sovereignty over the land, judgment on the wicked nations, and the regulated distribution of spoils according to God's will rather than human greed.