maḥashavah

This is by far the most common use of the word. It names the activity of the planning mind and what that planning produces, drawn from a root that means to think, weigh, and devise. It can be the quiet content of a person's heart, a worked-out plan of action, or a calculated plot aimed at someone else.

The word itself carries no moral verdict; the context supplies it. The same noun describes God's plans of peace for his people and a tyrant's plot to destroy them. Hebrew writers love to set a human plan against God's: people make many plans, but the LORD's purpose is the one that stands.

The three senses below are shades of one idea, not separate words. An inner thought, once it firms up, becomes a plan; a plan aimed against someone becomes a plot. What holds them together is that all three are deliberate products of the mind, not stray impressions.

A smaller but distinct group of verses uses the word for the creative ideas of a skilled worker. Here it is not a thought in the heart but a design that takes shape in metal, stone, wood, or cloth, or even a mechanical contraption. The connecting thread with the planning sense is the same root idea of devising, but a reader needs a different English word: this is invention and artistry, not intention.

Most of these verses describe the craftsmen who built the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, where the phrase points to expert, imaginative workmanship. One verse extends the idea to engines of war that clever men invented. In every case the word names the bright idea that a maker brings into being with his hands.