StrongerBible

meged

מֶגֶד

HebrewH4022“choice things, choice, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 33:13Deu 33:14 (2×)Deu 33:15Deu 33:16Sng 4:13Sng 4:16Sng 7:13(14)
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeMEH-gednoun

What meged means

the choicest yield: the best of what the sky, the soil, or a season brings forth

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word never says what a thing is, only how good it is. It picks out the top of whatever is being gathered in: the best of what the sky sends down, the best a season ripens, the best a hillside grows. Hebrew can therefore set it beside the plain word for a harvested crop (תְּבוּאָה) or the ordinary word for fruit (פְּרִי) and mean "the finest of it".

All eight uses are poetry, and they fall in two passages far apart in tone. In the blessing Moses speaks over Joseph the word sounds five times, listing everything a land can give at its best:

  • the choice things of heaven, which the verse spells out as dew
  • the choice yield that the sun ripens
  • the choice produce that the months bring round
  • the choice things of the age-old hills
  • the choice things of the earth and all that fills it

In the Song of Songs the same word turns intimate. A garden of choicest fruits is opened to a lover who is invited to come and eat, and delicacies both new and old are laid up at the door. The word itself has not changed value. What changes is whose produce it is and why it is wanted, which is why one English rendering rarely fits both passages.

Where the word came from is uncertain. The old suggestion links it to an Arabic word for glory and high standing, which would make the root idea "being outstanding", later narrowed to the outstanding thing itself. Nothing in the Hebrew Bible shows that earlier abstract stage: from its first appearance the word already means produce, and its nearest relatives in Aramaic and Syriac simply mean "fruit".

Nuances

1athe land's choicest yield: what the sky, the sun, the seasons, and the hills give at their best
Deu 33:13Deu 33:14 (2×)Deu 33:15Deu 33:16
1bchoicest fruits: a garden's delicacies, used in love poetry for the pleasures a lover offers
Sng 4:13Sng 4:16Sng 7:13(14)

Disputed

Where the word comes from, and therefore what its core idea is: an abstract quality of excellence, or concretely the choice produce of a place.

  • contestedThe word derives from an unused root meaning to be eminent or excellent, compared with Arabic majada / majd "be glorious, glory, honour", so its core idea is excellence and the produce sense is that quality applied to what nature yields. The Sabaic name mgd'l compared at BDB's entry on Magdiel is adduced as further evidence for the root.; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מֶגֶד; Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, s.v. מֶגֶד; Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, s.v. מֶגֶד
  • contestedThe derivation should be left open, since the distance between abstract glory and concrete produce is too wide to assert and the nearest relatives, Aramaic migda and Syriac magda, denote fruit. What can be established is the attested sense: excellence in the sense of a choice thing, always of what nature yields.; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, s.v. מֶגֶד; Koehler-Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. מֶגֶד

What scholars say about meged

The lexica agree on the working sense and hedge on the derivation. BDB heads the entry "excellence" and specifies "excellent or choice things; always of gifts of nature", positing an unused root מגד and comparing Arabic majada / majd "be glorious, glory" together with Syriac magda "fruit". Gesenius glosses the Deuteronomy occurrences as precious things put forth by the sun and the plural in the Song of Songs as "most precious fruits", noting that the Vulgate renders poma throughout and that Syriac magda denotes dried fruit. Klein gives "choice of things, excellence" and relates the word to Aramaic migda and Arabic majd. DCH and HALOT keep the corpus-internal glosses "excellence, choice thing" while remaining cautious about the abstract versus concrete problem. No Akkadian cognate is adduced; the Aramaic and Syriac evidence is real but the direction of borrowing is unresolved, and Jastrow documents the root and the noun migda in Rabbinic Aramaic with senses such as sweet, precious, choice fruit, dainty. BDB compares a Sabaic theophoric name mgd'l in its entry on Magdiel, and says of the place name Megiddo that its connexion with this root is not clear; the noun migdal "tower" is a formation from גדל and is unrelated.

The Deuteronomy cluster stands in the Blessing of Moses, dated by Cross and Freedman on orthographic grounds to roughly the eleventh or tenth century, which is what draws comparativists to Ugaritic. A minority reading takes the word as a gift or offering rendered up, supported by the related noun migdanot "precious gifts" and by a proposed Ugaritic mgd "food portion, offering". That cognate is not securely established in DULAT or in Gordon's glossary, and Craigie, himself a Ugaritic specialist, warned against pan-Ugaritism. Tigay, Craigie and the Driver commentary tradition read the term as choice produce, matching the blessing's agricultural thrust of dew, deep, sun, moon and hills. For the Song of Songs, Pope, Fox, Longman and Garrett read the garden and its choice fruits as frankly erotic imagery, so the lexical value is unchanged while the tone is not. Rendsburg treats the word within the northern linguistic features of Deuteronomy 33.

The ancient versions display the uncertainty directly. The Septuagint renders the Deuteronomy occurrences with hora "season" three times but with koryphe "summit" at 33:15, in parallel to rosh; in the Song it settles on akrodrya, orchard fruit. The Vulgate flattens everything to poma, and the Peshitta reads its own cognate for fruit.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מֶגֶדlexicon
  • Koehler-Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. מֶגֶדlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, s.v. מֶגֶדlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, s.v. מֶגֶדlexicon
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, s.v. מֶגֶדlexicon
  • Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and Midrashic Literature, s.v. מגד / מִגְדָּאlexicon
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary)commentary
  • Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT)commentary
  • Peter C. Craigie, "Deuteronomy and Ugaritic Studies," Tyndale Bulletin 28 (1977)article
  • S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (ICC)commentary
  • Frank M. Cross and David N. Freedman, "The Blessing of Moses," Journal of Biblical Literature 67 (1948): 191 to 210article
  • Frank M. Cross and David N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetrymonograph
  • Gary A. Rendsburg, "Israelian Hebrew Features in Deuteronomy 33"article
  • Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songsmonograph
  • Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs (NICOT)commentary
  • Duane Garrett, Song of Songs (Word Biblical Commentary)commentary
  • Gregorio del Olmo Lete and Joaquín Sanmartín, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Traditionlexicon

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

All attested forms of מֶגֶד

m s construct

מֶּגֶד

Deu 33:13, Deu 33:14, Deu 33:14, Deu 33:15, Deu 33:16

m p absolute

מְגָדִים

Sng 4:13, Sng 7:13

m p construct

מְגָדָיו

Sng 4:16