StrongerBible

me'ah

מֵאָה

HebrewH3967“hundred, hundredfold”

Appears 581 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 5:3Gen 5:4Gen 5:5Gen 5:6Gen 5:7Gen 5:8Gen 5:10Gen 5:11Gen 5:13Gen 5:14Gen 5:16Gen 5:17Gen 5:18Gen 5:19Gen 5:20Gen 5:22Gen 5:25Gen 5:28Gen 5:30Gen 6:3Gen 6:15Gen 7:24Gen 8:3Gen 11:10Gen 11:19Gen 11:21Gen 11:23Gen 11:25Gen 11:32Gen 17:17Gen 21:5Gen 23:1Gen 23:15Gen 25:7Gen 25:17Gen 26:12Gen 32:14(15) (2×)Gen 33:19Gen 35:28Gen 47:9Gen 47:28Gen 50:22Gen 50:26Exo 6:16Exo 6:18Exo 12:37Exo 27:9Exo 27:11Exo 27:18Exo 30:23 (2×)
Root family
Word studymay-AHnoun

What me'ah means

a hundred: the cardinal number 100

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is simply the Hebrew word for the number one hundred. Most of its appearances are plain arithmetic: the years of a person's life (Abraham fathered Isaac at a hundred), the size of an army or a herd, sums of money and weights of metal, and the running totals in the long census and genealogy lists. When the Hebrew counts above one hundred it stacks the words together, so the same word also turns up inside larger figures such as two hundred and six hundred.

A few times the number is used to picture a large amount rather than to count exactly. When Isaac reaps a hundredfold harvest, or when five people are said to chase a hundred and a hundred to chase ten thousand, a hundred stands for an impressively big result. This is still the ordinary number doing ordinary work; the writers simply chose a round, sizeable figure to make their point, much as English speakers say a hundred times to mean very many times.

There is no hidden second meaning to hunt for here. Whether it is counting heads, marking an age, or painting a vivid contrast, the word means one hundred throughout.

Gen 5:3Gen 5:4Gen 5:5Gen 5:6Gen 5:7Gen 5:8Gen 5:10Gen 5:11Gen 5:13Gen 5:14Gen 5:16Gen 5:17

What scholars say about me'ah

The standard lexica treat מֵאָה uniformly as the cardinal numeral 100, with no semantic subdivision (BDB; HALOT; DCH). It is among the most frequent numerals in the Hebrew Bible, attested in absolute, construct, and dual forms (the dual מָאתַיִם = 200), and it combines with other numerals to build composite figures. Beyond plain enumeration of years, persons, livestock, money, and measurements, it serves in hyperbolic or proverbial expressions of large quantity (Gen 26:12; Lev 26:8; 2 Sam 24:3; Eccl 8:12), which lexica and grammars classify as ordinary numeral usage rather than a distinct sense (see Gesenius-Kautzsch on the syntax of the tens and hundreds).

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. מֵאָהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. מֵאָהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. מֵאָהlexicon
  • Gesenius-Kautzsch, Hebrew Grammar (GKC), sections on the numeralsgrammar

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of מֵאָה

f p absolute

מֵאוֹת, מֵּאוֹת, מֵאֹת

Gen 5:5, Gen 5:7, Gen 5:8, Gen 5:10, Gen 5:11, Gen 5:13, Gen 5:14, Gen 5:16

f s absolute

מֵאָה, מֵּאָה

Gen 6:3, Gen 17:17, Gen 23:1, Gen 26:12, Gen 50:22, Gen 50:26, Exo 27:9, Exo 27:11

conj

מֵאָה, מְאַת, מָאתָיִם, מָאתַיִם, מֵּאוֹת, מֵּאָה, מָּאתַיִם, מָּאתָיִם

Gen 33:19, Lev 26:8, Num 2:24, Num 7:13, Num 7:19, Num 7:25, Num 7:31, Num 7:37

f d absolute

מָאתַיִם, מָאתָיִם

Gen 11:23, Gen 32:14, Gen 32:14, Jdg 17:4, 1Sa 15:4, 1Sa 18:27, 1Sa 25:13, 1Sa 25:18

f s construct

מְאַת

Gen 11:10, Gen 21:5, Gen 25:7, Gen 25:17, Gen 35:28, Exo 38:25, Exo 38:27, Exo 38:27

f p construct

מֵאוֹת, מֵאֹת

Gen 6:15, Exo 12:37, Exo 38:24, Exo 38:26, Num 11:21, Num 26:7, Num 26:51, Ezk 42:16