StrongerBible

moser

מוֹסֵר

HebrewH4147“bonds, bands, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Job 39:5Psa 2:3Psa 107:14Psa 116:16Isa 28:22Isa 52:2Jer 2:20Jer 5:5Jer 27:2Jer 30:8Nam 1:13
Root family
Word studyResearch-grademoh-SEHR (plural moh-seh-ROHT)noun

What moser means

a bond: the strap, rope, or shackle that ties something down, and so any hold that keeps a person or a nation in servitude

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a word from the barnyard and the prison yard before it is ever a word about politics or God. It names the working part of a restraint: the leather straps that hold a yoke on an ox's neck, the rope that tethers a donkey to its post, the cuff on a captive's wrist or neck. The scene that anchors every other use is Jeremiah 27:2, where the prophet is told to make himself straps and yoke-bars and wear them through Jerusalem while foreign envoys plot rebellion against Babylon. He is carrying the object itself, not a figure of speech.

From that concrete gear the word moves outward without ever losing the picture. It is the tether of a wild donkey that God never tied, the chains on prisoners sitting in the dark, the neck ropes on a deported city, the tribute shackle a foreign empire fastens on a small kingdom, and finally the claim God's rule has on those who would rather run loose. The verbs that keep it company are the verbs you use on real straps: to snap them and to untie them. So are the objects beside it, the yoke (עֹל) and its wooden bars (מוֹטָה), and the thick twisted ropes (עֲבֹת) that Psalm 2:3 sets in the same line.

What gives the word its edge is that the same bonds run in two directions:

  • God snaps them off his people, at the exodus and again in the promises of return (Jeremiah 30:8, Nahum 1:13, Psalm 107:14).
  • Rebels try to snap them off God, wanting his authority off their necks (Psalm 2:3, Jeremiah 5:5).
  • And once, they are tightened rather than broken, as the sentence on a people who keep mocking the prophet's word (Isaiah 28:22).

The word itself passes no verdict. Whether the bonds are a wrong to be undone or a right to be honored depends entirely on whose hand fastened them.

Nuances

1athe physical strap or tether: the leather thongs that fasten a yoke, or the rope that ties an animal
TranslatabilityDirect
Job 39:5Jer 27:2
1bthe shackles on a prisoner or a captive, and so the grip that holds someone who cannot free himself
Psa 107:14Psa 116:16Isa 52:2
1cthe hold of a foreign power over a nation: the fetter of vassal servitude and tribute
Isa 28:22Jer 2:20Jer 30:8Nam 1:13
Jer 2:20

Whether Jeremiah 2:20 says that God broke Israel's bonds or that Israel broke them off herself, which changes what the bonds stand for.

  • majorityThe Hebrew text reads a first-person verb: God recalls having personally broken Israel's yoke and bonds when he brought her out of Egypt, and Israel repaid the rescue with defiance.; William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1986), on 2:20; Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20, Anchor Bible 21A (Doubleday, 1999), on 2:20; John Bright, Jeremiah, Anchor Bible 21 (Doubleday, 1965), on 2:20; Georg Fischer, Jeremia 1-25, HTKAT (Herder, 2005), on 2:20
  • minorityThe ancient Greek and Latin versions read a second-person verb, making the line an accusation that Israel herself broke her yoke and bonds.; William McKane, Jeremiah I: I-XXV, ICC (T&T Clark, 1986), on 2:20; Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah, OTL (Westminster John Knox, 1986), on 2:20
1dthe restraints of God's rule, pictured as ropes that rebels want to snap off their necks
Psa 2:3Jer 5:5

What scholars say about moser

The critical lexicons converge on a single entry. BDB places the noun under the root אסר and glosses "band, bond," listing the eleven attestations (Job 39:5; Ps 2:3; 107:14; 116:16; Isa 28:22; 52:2; Jer 2:20; 5:5; 27:2; 30:8; Nah 1:13) plus an emended Job 12:18. HALOT treats I מוֹסֵר / מוֹסֵרָה as a mem-preformative noun of instrument from אסר, glossing "bond, fetter, band, chain, tether," and keeps it in a wholly separate entry from מוּסָר "discipline" (root יסר, c. 50 occurrences). DCH (Clines, vol. V) lists the same eleven passages, notes the disputed Job 12:18, and enumerates the typical syntagmatic partners (נתק, פתח, עשׂה, חזק). Gesenius18 (Meyer-Donner) glosses "Fessel, Band, Strick" under אסר. Morphologically the noun derives from *maʾsēr "means of binding," with quiescence of the aleph after the preformative mem yielding compensatory /o/; the plural is usually feminine מוֹסֵרוֹת, with a masculine plural at Isa 52:2 and Ps 116:16. The resemblance to מוּסָר (from *maysar, root יסר) is a coincidental convergence in Hebrew phonology, treated as such by Fabry (TDOT), the HALOT editors, and Clines; Strong's system, which files both #4147 and #4148 under #3256 יסר, preserves a pre-critical conflation that modern lexicography rejects. The one genuinely contested vocalization is Job 12:18, where MT מוּסַר is emended to מוֹסַר by Dillmann, Hoffmann, BDB, HALOT, and Gesenius18 on the strength of the verb פתח and the parallel girdle; Ibn Ezra's derivation of Ps 2:3 from יסר is universally rejected, since the parallel עֲבֹת and the verb נתק require a physical bond. TDOT and NIDOTTE (#659) both organize the usage into three registers: literal restraint of an animal, imprisonment or oppression, and rebellion against divinely imposed authority. On individual passages: Clines (WBC), Pope, Habel, and Driver-Gray read Job 39:5 as a straightforward tether; Kraus, Craigie, Hossfeld-Zenger, Goldingay, and the NICOT Psalms locate Ps 2:3 in ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaty politics, where subject kings tested a new suzerain at each regnal transition; Hossfeld-Zenger observe that Ps 107:14 lexically mirrors Ps 2:3 (same verb נתק, same noun), so that what rebels vainly attempt YHWH actually accomplishes for the oppressed; Wildberger, Blenkinsopp, Childs, Watts, Beuken, and Roberts read Isa 28:22 as the coming metaphorical bond of Assyrian vassalage; Blenkinsopp, Westermann, Baltzer, Goldingay-Payne, and Koole read Isa 52:2 against the iconography of Assyrian and Babylonian deportation (the Ketiv/Qere variant there concerns the verb, not the noun); Holladay, Lundbom, McKane, Bright, Carroll, Allen, and Fischer read Jer 5:5 figuratively of covenantal restraint and Jer 30:8 and Nah 1:13 of political fetters; and Holladay, Lundbom, McKane, Bright, and Friebel treat the objects of Jer 27:2 as literal wood and leather in a prophetic sign-act, which is the concrete anchor for the metaphorical uses. Later Hebrew shows the concrete noun fossilizing: at Qumran and in Ben Sira מוסר is overwhelmingly mûsār "discipline," and Jastrow records מוֹסֵר surviving in rabbinic Hebrew chiefly in scriptural citation, the productive nouns of אסר having become אֵסוּר and אָסוּר. Sir 6:24-30 is a rare self-conscious exploitation of the near-homophony, fusing Wisdom's fetters with her chastenings.

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, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), s.v. מוֹסֵר, under root אסרlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), s.v. I מוֹסֵרlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. V (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2001), s.v. מוֹסֵרlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., ed. R. Meyer and H. Donner (Berlin: Springer, 2013), s.v.lexicon
  • H.-J. Fabry, article אָסַר, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. I, ed. G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974)theological-dictionary
  • New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), article #659 אסרtheological-dictionary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 and Jeremiah 2, Hermeneia (Philadelphia and Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986, 1989)commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20 and Jeremiah 21-36, Anchor Bible 21A and 21B (New York: Doubleday, 1999, 2004)commentary
  • Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, Word Biblical Commentary 19 (Waco: Word, 1983), on Psalm 2commentary
  • F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger, Psalms 3: A Commentary on Psalms 101-150, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), on Psalm 107commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55, Anchor Bible 19A (New York: Doubleday, 2002), on 52:1-2commentary
  • J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), on Nahum 1:13commentary
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), on 28:22commentary
  • D. J. A. Clines, Job 38-42, Word Biblical Commentary 18B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), on 39:5commentary
  • Kelvin G. Friebel, Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts, JSOTSup 284 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999)monograph
  • Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1903), s.vv. מוֹסֵר, מוֹסֵרָה, אֵסוּרdictionary
  • Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, Anchor Bible 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), on Sirach 6:24-30commentary

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

All attested forms of מוֹסֵר

f p absolute

מוֹסֵרוֹת

Jer 5:5, Jer 27:2

f p construct

וּמוֹסְרֹתַיִךְ, מוֹסְרֹתַיִךְ

Nam 1:13, Jer 2:20

f p construct

וּמוֹסְרוֹתֵיהֶם, מוֹסְרוֹתֵימוֹ

Psa 107:14, Psa 2:3

f p construct

מֹסְרוֹת

Job 39:5

f p construct

וּמוֹסְרוֹתֶיךָ

Jer 30:8

m p construct

מוֹסְרֵי

Isa 52:2

m p construct

לְמוֹסֵרָי

Psa 116:16

m p construct

מוֹסְרֵיכֶם

Isa 28:22