StrongerBible

malaḥ

מָלַח

HebrewH4414“salt, season with salt, ...”

Appears 5 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Exo 30:35Lev 2:13Isa 51:6Ezk 16:4 (2×)
Root family
Word studyResearch-grademah-LAKHverb

What malaḥ means

1

to salt something: to sprinkle or rub salt onto it, whether an offering set on God's altar or a newborn's skin

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

Salt did more in Israel than flavor food. It does not spoil, so it became the natural sign of a bond that would not spoil either. Leviticus 2:13 makes the point with unusual force, sounding the word for salt four times in a single verse: every grain offering must be salted, and the salt is named the salt of the covenant. The altar was thought of as God's own table, and food set before a host is seasoned.

That is why one small verb turns up in settings that look unrelated at first:

  • The grain offering is salted before it goes up on the altar (Leviticus 2:13).
  • The sacred incense of the tabernacle is described with this word, either salted or fully compounded (Exodus 30:35).
  • A newborn baby is rubbed with salt in the first minutes of care after birth (Ezekiel 16:4).

Rubbing a newborn with salt was real practice, not a poetic flourish. Ancient physicians prescribed it to dry the skin, clean off the blood of birth, and toughen the body, warning only against using too much; villagers in the region were still doing it within the last hundred years. Ezekiel puts that ordinary detail to devastating use. Jerusalem is pictured as an infant nobody wanted: her cord uncut, her body unwashed, unsalted, unwrapped. Because Ezekiel thinks in the vocabulary of the sanctuary, the unsalted child stands next to the unsalted offering, and both are unfit to be received.

The verb is built straight from the ordinary noun for salt (מֶלַח), and the picture runs in the opposite direction too. Salt shared at a table sealed loyalty; salt scattered over ruined ground marked land that would never bear a crop again. One substance carried both the promise and the curse.

Nuances

1ato season an offering with salt, as the covenant required of every grain offering
Lev 2:13
1bto rub a newborn's skin with salt as part of the care given right after birth
Ezk 16:4 (2×)
1cof the tabernacle incense: salted, or possibly compounded until thoroughly blended
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
Exo 30:35
Exo 30:35

Whether the Pual participle describing the incense of Exodus 30:35 means "salted" or "thoroughly blended, compounded."

  • contested"Salted": the Pual is a rare but genuine passive of the Qal denominative, so the incense bears the same covenant-of-salt marker as the grain offering of Leviticus 2:13, and the halakhic tradition of adding salt of Sodom to the temple incense reflects the original sense.; W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (AB 2A; Yale, 2006), 484-86; J. I. Durham, Exodus (WBC 3; Word, 1987), 405-07; C. Houtman, Exodus (HCOT; Peeters, 2000), 3:583-85
  • contested"Well blended, compounded": a technical term of perfumery. The Greek translators who carefully preserved the salting idiom at Leviticus 2:13 chose "mixed" here, as did Targum Onqelos and the Vulgate, and the Pual has no other secure attestation in the sense "salted."; N. M. Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; JPS, 1991), 197; B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Westminster, 1974), 550; U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Magnes, 1967), 400
2

to vanish away: to dissolve or be torn to nothing, said of the sky wearing out

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

Isaiah 51:6 tells the reader to look up and watch the sky go: the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and only God's saving justice will remain. The verb in that line looks exactly like the verb for salting, and that single overlap has kept the dictionaries of biblical Hebrew arguing for two centuries.

Most conclude that Hebrew had two different words made of the same three letters, and that this one is related to an Arabic verb for tearing something loose. On that reading the sky is ripped away and gone. A smaller group, including medieval Jewish commentators and a few modern specialists, hears one word with a wide reach: salt vanishes by dissolving, and so does the sky. The image then is closer to melting than to tearing.

Either way the verse lands in the same place. The sky and the ground are the most permanent things a person can see, and they will not last. What God has promised will outlive them.

Isa 51:6
Isa 51:6

What the Niphal of Isaiah 51:6 means, and whether it belongs to the root מלח "to salt" at all.

  • majorityA separate root מלח II, "to tear away, dissipate," cognate with Arabic malakha and Geez malha, so the heavens vanish or are torn apart.; HALOT, s.v. מלח II; BDB 571-72, s.v. מָלַח I; J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55 (AB 19A; Doubleday, 2002), 326-27; J. Goldingay and D. Payne, Isaiah 40-55 (ICC; T&T Clark, 2006), 2:231-32
  • minorityThe same verb as "to salt," used figuratively: the heavens dissolve as salt dissolves, or crumble to fine grains. Symmachus already rendered the verse with a word from the Greek noun for salt.; B. S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL; WJK, 2001), 402; N. Mizrahi, "ממולח טוהר: Qumranic and Medieval Exegesis," Dead Sea Discoveries 31/2 (2024)

What scholars say about malaḥ

מלח is generally analyzed as a denominative verb from the noun מֶלַח, itself reflecting Proto-Semitic *mlḥ, which is among the most stable Semitic lexical inheritances (Aramaic/Syriac מִלְחָא, Ugaritic mlḥt, Phoenician-Punic mlḥ, Arabic ملح, Geez). East Semitic is the outlier, having replaced the common noun with Akkadian ṭābtu "the good thing," so traces of *mlḥ survive there only in specialized substances (milʾu, miliḫḫu) and a marginal verb malāḫu. Biblical Aramaic preserves the denominative at Ezra 4:14 (מְלַחְנָא) as an idiom of pledged loyalty to a patron, and Ezra 6:9 shows the Persian court supplying salt for the Jerusalem cult.

The standard lexicons split the Hebrew consonantal root: BDB lists three entries (I "tear away, dissipate" for the Niphal of Isa 51:6; II the noun "rag" of Jer 38:11-12; III the denominative "to salt"); HALOT distinguishes מלח I from מלח II "disappear"; TWOT assigns 1196 and 1197; DCH posits multiple homonyms; Eising's TDOT article on מֶלַח follows the two-root analysis. A minority position, revived by Mizrahi (Dead Sea Discoveries 2024) after Carmignac and drawing on medieval grammarians such as Tanhum of Jerusalem, organizes salting, pulverizing, and dissipating within one semantic field of reduction to fine grains. Gesenius himself moved between derivations. The noun מַלָּח "sailor" is no longer taken as a derivative of "salt": following Kaufman and Noonan it is a Sumerian loan (má-laḫ, "boat-mover") mediated by Akkadian and naturalized into the Hebrew qaṭṭāl occupational pattern.

The four verbal forms are morphologically diverse and each contested to some degree: the Qal of Lev 2:13 with its cognate object (LXX ἁλὶ ἁλισθήσεται), the Pual participle of Exod 30:35 (LXX μεμιγμένον, Onqelos מְעָרַב, Vulgate mixtum, against Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Propp, Durham, Houtman), the Hophal infinitive absolute plus finite Hophal of Ezek 16:4 (LXX ἁλὶ ἡλίσθης; the double passive of a denominative fits Ezekiel's distinctive usage as analyzed by Hurvitz), and the Niphal hapax of Isa 51:6 (LXX ἐστερεώθη, but Symmachus with a form from ἅλς).

On the cultic and covenantal side, Milgrom's Leviticus treatment is standard: salt's incorruptibility made it the ideal symbol of a covenant's perdurability, and the altar as God's table required seasoned food, with Neo-Babylonian, Ugaritic, Greek, and Roman parallels. Levine emphasizes the shared-meal covenant and the Second Temple לִשְׁכַּת מֶלַח (m. Middot 5:3); Wenham the table-fellowship dimension; Hartley salt's polyvalence. Fensham's 1962 study established that the positive and negative salt symbolism belong to one covenantal field, drawing on Hittite and Neo-Assyrian treaty curses of salt and infertility, which illuminates Judg 9:45, the Sodom cluster, Jer 17:6, and Ps 107:34; Latham's monograph synthesizes the material. For Ezek 16:4 the proposed functions of neonatal salting are hygienic (Greenberg, citing Soranus, Gynaecology 2.6.12-14, and Galen), legitimating (Zimmerli), apotropaic (Meyers), and purificatory (Gursky, Ackerman), with Block accepting several at once and stressing Ezekiel's rhetorical inversion; Stol documents the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean background.

Where scholars disagree about malaḥ

Whether the biblical occurrences belong to a single root or whether Isaiah 51:6 belongs to a separate verb spelled with the same three letters.

  • majorityTwo (or three) distinct roots: a verb "to salt" built from the noun מֶלַח, and a separate מלח "to tear away, dissipate" behind the Niphal of Isaiah 51:6 (BDB adding a third entry for the "rags" of Jeremiah 38:11-12).; HALOT, vol. 2, 587-89; BDB 571-72, s.v. מָלַח I-III; DCH, vol. 5, s.v. מלח; TWOT, entries 1196 and 1197; H. Eising and H.-J. Fabry, "מֶלַח," TDOT vol. 8 (Eerdmans, 1997)
  • minorityOne root with a wide semantic field organized around reducing something to fine grains, which holds salting, pulverizing, and dissipating together; a network already recognized by medieval Hebrew grammarians alongside roots for making thin, fine, and spread out.; N. Mizrahi, "ממולח טוהר: Qumranic and Medieval Exegesis," Dead Sea Discoveries 31/2 (2024), esp. n. 4
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

  • HALOT, vol. 2, 587-89, s.v. מלח I, מלח II, מַלָּחlexicon
  • BDB 571-72, s.v. מָלַח I-IIIlexicon
  • DCH, vol. 5, s.v. מלחlexicon
  • TWOT (Moody, 1980), entries 1196 and 1197theological-dictionary
  • H. Eising and H.-J. Fabry, "מֶלַח," TDOT vol. 8 (Eerdmans, 1997)theological-dictionary
  • J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (AB 3; Doubleday, 1991), 188-92commentary
  • G. J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Eerdmans, 1979), 71commentary
  • B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary; JPS, 1989), ad Lev 2:13commentary
  • W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (AB 2A; Yale, 2006), 484-86commentary
  • N. M. Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; JPS, 1991), 197commentary
  • M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (AB 22; Doubleday, 1983), 274-78commentary
  • D. I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (NICOT; Eerdmans, 1997), 476-82commentary
  • W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1979), 337-41commentary
  • F. C. Fensham, "Salt as Curse in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East," Biblical Archaeologist 25/2 (1962): 48-50journal-article
  • J. E. Latham, The Religious Symbolism of Salt (Theologie historique 64; Beauchesne, 1982)monograph
  • B. J. Noonan, Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible (Eisenbrauns/Penn State UP, 2019), s.v. מַלָּחmonograph
  • S. A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (AS 19; Oriental Institute, 1974)monograph
  • N. Mizrahi, "ממולח טוהר: Qumranic and Medieval Exegesis," Dead Sea Discoveries 31/2 (2024)journal-article
  • M. Stol, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting (CM 14; Styx, 2000), 177monograph
  • M. Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (Clarendon, 1978), ch. XImonograph

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

All attested forms of מָלַח

hophal infinitive-absolute absolute

הָמְלֵחַ

Ezk 16:4

hophal perfect 2fs

הֻמְלַחַתְּ

Ezk 16:4

niphal perfect 3cp

נִמְלָחוּ

Isa 51:6

pual passive-participle m s absolute

מְמֻלָּח

Exo 30:35

qal imperfect 2ms

תִּמְלָח

Lev 2:13