a metal pan for handling fire: one used to carry glowing coals, to scoop ash off an altar, or to catch the burnt trimmings of a lamp.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
The word names one simple object, a shallow metal pan, and the jobs a fire needs done around it. What English calls the pan shifts with its task: fill it with live coals for burning incense and it is a "censer"; rake embers and ash off the altar with it and it is a "firepan"; set it beside the lampstand to catch the charred bits snipped from the wicks and it is a "tray" or "snuffdish."
The metal tracks where the pan served. The pans for the outdoor altar were bronze, part of a matched set of altar tools alongside the ash-shovel (יָע). The pans for the incense service and for the lampstand, which stood inside the holy place, were pure gold.
The coal-carrying use is where the word turns dramatic. A pan of the wrong fire killed Aaron's sons. Two hundred fifty of these pans became the test that ended Korah's rebellion, and afterward their bronze was hammered into a covering for the altar as a lasting warning. And it was a pan of altar coals topped with incense that Aaron ran into the camp to carry, standing between the living and the dead to halt a plague.
Nuances
1aa censer: a fire-pan that holds burning coals so incense can be offered on them.
The Hebrew names a plain pan that becomes a censer only when filled with coals and incense; the very same pan does other jobs elsewhere.Lev 16:12Num 16:6
Both
Both name a pan that carries burning coals so incense can be offered on them.Lev 16:12Num 16:17
Only censer
"Censer" suggests a dedicated, often ornate vessel swung on chains in worship; the Hebrew object is a simple hand pan with none of that ceremony built in.
Both name the small tray belonging to the lampstand that held its wick trimmings.Exo 25:38Num 4:9
Only snuffdish
This old English rendering misleads modern readers, who hear "snuff" as powdered tobacco; it actually means the tray that caught the burnt ends snipped off the lamp wicks.
“tray”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How maḥtah differs from similar Hebrew words
מִקְטֶרֶתa vessel dedicated to burning incense. This word is a general fire-pan that becomes a censer only when it happens to carry coals for incense.
Names a general metal fire-pan by its shape and use, not by incense: the same word covers the small trays that catch the burnt trimmings of the lampstand and the shovels that scoop ash off the altar, jobs that have nothing to do with offering incense.Exo 25:38Exo 27:3Num 4:14
Both
Both can name the handheld censer that carries burning coals and incense to be offered before God.Lev 16:12Num 16:172Ch 26:19Ezk 8:11
Built from the verb for burning incense, so it names the vessel by that one rite: both times it appears it is in the hand of someone actively offering incense, never a pan for coals or ash.2Ch 26:19Ezk 8:11
יָעthe altar shovel, a companion tool for clearing ash; it is a scoop, whereas this word is the pan that actually holds and carries the coals.
names a pan that carries live fire: the firepan heaped with burning coals to offer incense before God, the very vessel Aaron's sons misused and the rebels under Korah seized.Lev 16:12Lev 10:1Num 16:6
also serves as the golden lampstand's small trays, the pans that hold the trimmed and snuffed wicks, a use tied to the lamp rather than the altar.Exo 25:38Exo 37:23Num 4:9
Both
both are bronze implements made for the sanctuary's service and are listed side by side in the tabernacle and temple equipment inventories.Exo 27:3Num 4:14
names the ash shovel: the flat bronze scoop used to clear away the greasy ashes left on the altar of burnt offering, and it turns up only inside inventories of that altar's equipment.1Ki 7:402Ki 25:14Jer 52:18
Its whole job is to carry live fire: Aaron fills one with burning coals taken from the altar and heaps the incense on top of them (Leviticus 16:12), and it is the vessel a priest is holding when he brings incense before God (Leviticus 10:1). Hence the usual renderings "censer" and "firepan".Lev 16:12Lev 10:1
Because it carries fire into God's presence, it becomes the instrument of the wilderness period's sharpest confrontations. Nadab and Abihu die when they put unauthorized fire in theirs (Leviticus 10:1); Korah's company is told to take censers and stand with them (Numbers 16:17,Numbers 16:18) and is consumed; the 250 pans, now holy, are hammered into plating for the altar (Numbers 16:38,Numbers 16:39); and Aaron runs out with one among the people to stop a plague (Numbers 16:46).Num 16:17Num 16:38Num 16:46
It has a second job away from the altar that the fork never shares: a small gold tray belonging to the lampstand, made with the tongs to take the trimmed wicks, which is why it is sometimes rendered "snuffdish" (Exodus 25:38,Exodus 37:23,Numbers 4:9).Exo 25:38Exo 37:23Num 4:9
It stays in view through the whole life of the temple and its looting, listed among Solomon's pure gold vessels (1 Kings 7:50,2 Chronicles 4:22) and then among the pieces the Babylonians carried off (2 Kings 25:15,Jeremiah 52:19), where the fork is never named.1Ki 7:502Ki 25:15Jer 52:19
Both
Both are standard bronze equipment of the altar of burnt offering, made at the same time as the altar and listed in one breath with its other tools (Exodus 27:3,Exodus 38:3).Exo 27:3Exo 38:3
Both let a priest work at the altar without putting a hand into what is on it, and both count as holy equipment that the Levites packed and carried whenever the altar traveled (Numbers 4:14).Num 4:14
Handles the meat of a sacrifice rather than fire: the only scene that shows one in use has the priest's servant at Shiloh thrusting the three-pronged fork into the boiling pot and taking whatever it brought up (1 Samuel 2:13), the abuse that grew worse when raw meat was demanded before the fat was burned (1 Samuel 2:14).1Sa 2:131Sa 2:14
It grips and lifts instead of holding anything, so it belongs with the cooking gear of the offering: Solomon's craftsman makes the forks together with the pots and the shovels (2 Chronicles 4:16), and David sets aside pure gold for forks alongside the bowls and cups (1 Chronicles 28:17). It never carries coals, ashes or incense.2Ch 4:161Ch 28:17
maḥtah in the other biblical languages
λιβανωτόςGreek“censer”the Greek word for a censer used in worship; it names only the incense function, without this word's wider range covering ash-pans and lamp-trays.
The Hebrew word names a whole family of metal utensils, not only an incense censer: the trays or "snuffdishes" that served the lampstand, and the firepans of the bronze altar that carried away ashes and coals.Exo 25:38Exo 27:3
It is the object at the center of Korah's rebellion, where the challengers each take a firepan to offer unauthorized incense, and afterward the bronze of those pans is hammered into a covering for the altar.Num 16:6Num 16:39
Both
Both name the vessel that carries live coals and fire from the altar so incense can be offered before God.Lev 16:12Rev 8:5
Each is its Bible's standard term for the censer used in sanctuary incense worship, the pan held in the hand as the smoke rises before God.Lev 10:1Rev 8:3
This is really the ordinary word for frankincense, transferred to name the vessel that carries it, and it turns up only in the heavenly worship vision of Revelation, as the golden censer an angel holds at the altar.Rev 8:3
The censer here is tied directly to the prayers of the saints: the angel fills it with fire from the altar and throws it to the earth, launching the trumpet judgments.Rev 8:5
θυμιατήριονGreek“incense altar”a Greek term for the vessel or place of incense-offering; again limited to the incense role that is only one of this word's uses.
It is always a portable pan for carrying live coals: used to scoop burning coals from the altar and carry them inside, and held by individuals offering incense.Lev 16:12Num 16:6
Its range extends beyond incense to plain sanctuary implements, including the gold trays or snuffdishes that served the lampstand.Exo 25:38Exo 37:23
Both
Both name a gold vessel tied to the burning of incense before God in the sanctuary, so the Greek word carries into the New Testament the same holy censer the Hebrew word names in the Old.Num 16:17Heb 9:4
It names the instrument or place of incense-offering itself, and in its single appearance is famously ambiguous between the fixed golden altar of incense and a golden censer belonging to the inner sanctuary.Heb 9:4
What scholars say about maḥtah
The noun derives from the root ḥātâ, "to rake or snatch up (coals)," and denotes a fire-pan or coal-pan. BDB and HALOT organize its uses by function rather than form: a pan for carrying coals, used as a censer for incense (Leviticus 10:1; 16:12; Numbers 16); a bronze pan for clearing ash and embers from the altar of burnt offering (Exodus 27:3; 38:3; Numbers 4:14); and a gold tray belonging to the lampstand for its wick-trimmings (Exodus 25:38; 37:23; Numbers 4:9). The gold pans in the sanctuary and temple inventories (1 Kings 7:50;2 Kings 25:15;2 Chronicles 4:22;Jeremiah 52:19) are rendered variously "censers" or "firepans." Milgrom and the standard lexica treat these as one lexeme differentiated by context, not as separate homonyms.
Sources
BDB, s.v. מַחְתָּהlexicon
HALOT, s.v. מַחְתָּהlexicon
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible)commentary