an entrance or way in: the point of access into a city, building, or enclosed space, and the act of coming in itself
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This word grows out of the ordinary verb for going in or coming in, so at its root it means simply "a going-in." Most often that is a place: the entrance to a city, the doorway of the temple, the gate a king passes through. Guards are posted at it, an army pours through it, and worshipers approach the house of God by it.
Because it names the way in rather than the structure itself, it sits close to the words for a gate or a doorway without being identical to either. A gate is the built gateway, and a doorway is the opening in the wall; this word is the point of access, the way one comes in. Its natural opposite is מוֹצָא, the way out. In one place it slips all the way back to the plain action behind it, describing how a crowd of people streams in.
Nuances
1aa place of entry: the gateway, doorway, or point of access into a city, building, or enclosure
1bthe act of coming in: people streaming in, an arrival
Ezk 33:31*
2
the going-down of the sun, and so the west: sunset as an event, and the direction where the sun sets
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In these verses Hebrew has no plain, bare word for "west." Instead it pictures the direction by what the sun does there: the sun "goes in," as if entering its home for the night, and the place it goes in is the west. So the very word that means an entrance, once paired with "the sun," comes to mean "sunset" and then "the west."
Writers use it two ways. Sometimes it marks the moment the sun sets, as when "the sun knows the time of its going-down." Sometimes it marks the direction or region, the western edge of a land. In the sweeping phrase "from the rising of the sun to its going-in," the two horizons stand for the whole earth, everywhere under the sun's daily path. Unlike מַעֲרָב, the ordinary word for west, this word keeps the picture of the sun going in.
Nuances
2athe west: the direction or region where the sun goes down
Deu 11:30Jos 1:4Jos 23:4Zec 8:7
2bsunset: the sun's going-down, or the western point of its setting
pictures the sun as going in, as if entering its home to rest, rather than simply dropping below the horizonPsa 104:19
Both
both name the sun sinking at the close of the dayPsa 113:3
Only sunset
English "sunset" is a purely astronomical term, missing the image of the sun coming in
How mavo differs from similar Hebrew words
מוֹצָאthe matching opposite: this word is the going-out or exit, and "the going-out of the sun" is sunrise and the east, mirroring the entrance and the west.
Marks the way IN: the entrance or gateway of a city or building, the point at which one enters.Jdg 1:24Ezk 26:10
Forms the fixed phrase for the setting of the sun, so it names the west, the quarter where the sun goes in for the day.Deu 11:30Psa 104:19
Both
Both are place-words drawn from verbs of motion and mark a fixed passage of a structure, so the temple vision pairs them as the way in and the way out of the sanctuary.Ezk 44:5
Names the way in to a wider place, the approach or access point to a city, region, or land, the route by which one arrives rather than a single built doorway.Jos 1:4Jdg 1:24Ezk 26:10
Used for the sun's going in, the west or sunset, the place where the day's light enters its rest, an idiom for a direction that no word for a built doorway carries.Psa 50:1Psa 104:19Psa 113:3Mal 1:11
Both
Both can name the point of entry to a city's gateway, so wisdom can be pictured calling at the way in and at the doorway of the gates alike.Pro 8:3
Names a specific built doorway set in a wall or tent, the framed opening of a particular structure that one stands at or passes through.Gen 18:1Gen 18:2
The fixed term for the entrance of the tent of meeting, the cultic threshold where offerings were brought and the people assembled.Exo 29:4Lev 1:3Num 27:2
שַׁעַרthe built gateway of a city or temple, which guards the way in, while this word is the entrance or access itself rather than the structure.
Names the setting of the sun and so the west; paired with the sunrise it marks the daily and geographic span from where the sun comes up to where it goes down.Psa 50:1Mal 1:11Deu 11:30
Denotes the act of entering or the approach one passes through, the way in itself rather than a built structure with doors.Jdg 1:24Ezk 44:5
Both
Both name a point of entry into a city or enclosed space and can stand side by side, where the entrance is the passage that leads in through the gate.Ezk 26:10Pro 8:3
The built gate itself: the fortified opening in a city wall or courtyard, hung with doors and defended against enemies.Gen 22:17Exo 27:16
The town's public center, where elders judge cases and business is settled, so that the phrase "within your gates" stands for the whole community.Deu 16:18Gen 23:10Deu 21:19
מַעֲרָבthe plain, ordinary word for the compass direction west, where this word names that same direction by the picture of where the sun goes in.
Names a physical entrance: the way into a city, building, or gate that a person walks through. This is the word's core sense and the one H4628 never carries.Jdg 1:24Jdg 1:25
Can point to the setting of the sun as an event in time, the moment it goes down, rather than to a fixed direction. It says west by describing what the sun does, so it can also just mean the sundown itself.Psa 104:19
Both
Both mark the western edge of the world in the sweeping "from the rising of the sun to its going down" merism, the pairing of east and west that stands for the whole earth.Psa 113:3Mal 1:11Psa 103:12Isa 45:6
The plain compass word for west, one of the four fixed cardinal points, used bare in lists of directions and in boundary descriptions with no picture of the sun behind it.Psa 107:3Isa 43:5
mavo in the other biblical languages
εἴσοδοςGreek“entry”the Greek word for an entrance or a coming in, covering both the place and the act, just as this word does.
Names a physical, built entrance: a city gate, a doorway, the way into a building, an object you can stand at or guard.Jdg 1:242Ki 16:18Ezk 46:19
Marks the sun's going down, and so the west as a direction and region, a sense the Greek word never carries.Psa 50:1Psa 104:19Mal 1:11Zec 8:7
Both
Both name the way into a sacred space, the entering of God's house: the Hebrew word for the literal temple gateway, the Greek word for the opened access into the true sanctuary.Ezk 44:5Heb 10:19
Names the act of a person's coming or arrival, an event rather than a place: the arrival that is announced, the visit paid, the reception a coming meets.Act 13:241Th 1:91Th 2:1
Marks figurative admission into a realm, the granted access into a domain one could not otherwise reach.2Pe 1:11
δυσμήGreek“west”the Greek word for west or sunset, the counterpart to this word's solar meaning.
a physical entrance: the gateway or doorway of a city or building, the place where one goes inJdg 1:24Ezk 46:19
marks the spot of entry as a location in its own right, such as the mouth of the city gates where wisdom calls outPro 8:3
Both
both name the west, the direction of the setting sun: the Greek word states it plainly as a compass point, while the Hebrew reaches the same direction through the phrase "the going in of the sun", so the pairing "from the rising of the sun to its going down" spans east to westPsa 50:1Mal 1:11Mat 8:11Luk 13:29
purely a compass direction: the west, the quarter of the horizon where the sun goes down, regularly set opposite the east to mark the full sweep of the earthMat 24:27Luk 12:54
names the west as a fixed point on the map even when locating one side of a structure, without any idea of a doorway or of going inRev 21:13
What scholars say about mavo
מבוא is a noun of place and action from the root בוא, "to enter, come in," formed with the noun-forming m- prefix. Its concrete sense is the entrance or access-way of a city, building, or temple (Judg 1:24;Ezek 44:5;Jer 38:14), and it can also denote the act of entering (Ezek 33:31). In the fixed phrase מבוא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ, "the going-in of the sun," it names sunset and, by extension, the west and the western region (Deut 11:30;Josh 1:4;Zech 8:7;Ps 50:1). Its formal and semantic counterpart is מוֹצָא, "going-out," which yields exit and, with "sun," sunrise and the east; the two are paired in Ezek 44:5. The Septuagint renders the entrance sense with εἴσοδος and the solar sense with δυσμή. HALOT, BDB, and DCH treat the whole range as one polysemous word rather than as unrelated homonyms.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. מבואlexicon
BDB, s.v. מבואlexicon
DCH, s.v. מבואlexicon
H. D. Preuss, "bôʾ," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 2reference