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malkah

מַלְכָּה

HebrewH4436queen

Appears 35 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Ki 10:11Ki 10:41Ki 10:101Ki 10:132Ch 9:12Ch 9:32Ch 9:92Ch 9:12Est 1:9Est 1:11Est 1:12Est 1:15Est 1:16Est 1:17 (2×)Est 1:18Est 2:22Est 4:4Est 5:2Est 5:3Sng 6:8Sng 6:9
Word studymahl-KAHnoun

What malkah means

queen: a woman of the highest royal rank

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This word is the feminine of the word for king, and it means simply queen. English carries it well, whether the woman rules a kingdom herself or holds the title as the king's wife.

In the Bible the word points in two directions. Most often it names a king's queen, his royal wife, as with Vashti and Esther in the Persian court, or the sixty queens pictured alongside the concubines in the Song of Songs. But it can also name a woman who reigns in her own right, most famously the queen of Sheba, who traveled to test Solomon with hard questions.

One detail is worth noticing. The Old Testament almost never gives this title to an Israelite or Judean royal woman. The influential woman at a king's court in Judah was usually the queen mother, named by a different word. So this word tends to describe foreign courts and the women who married into or ruled them.

Nuances

1aa king's queen: the royal wife who bears the title alongside the king
Est 1:9Est 1:11Est 1:12Est 1:15Est 1:16Est 1:17 (2×)Est 1:18Est 2:22Est 4:4Est 5:2Est 5:3Est 5:12
1ba reigning queen: a woman who rules a kingdom in her own right
1Ki 10:11Ki 10:41Ki 10:101Ki 10:132Ch 9:12Ch 9:32Ch 9:92Ch 9:12

What scholars say about malkah

The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB) treat malkah as the feminine of melek, denoting a queen either as a reigning sovereign (the queen of Sheba, 1 Kgs 10) or as the royal consort (Vashti and Esther; the plural in Song 6:8). Studies of Israelite royal terminology (TDOT, s.v. melek) observe that malkah is characteristically applied to foreign queens, while the influential woman at the Judahite court is normally the gebirah (queen mother), and the consort at the king's side the shegal.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. מַלְכָּהlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. מַלְכָּהlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. מֶלֶךְ (melek)theological-dictionary

All attested forms of מַלְכָּה

f s absolute

מַּלְכָּה

Est 1:9, Est 1:11, Est 1:12, Est 1:15, Est 1:16, Est 1:17, Est 1:17, Est 1:18

f s construct

מַלְכַּת

1Ki 10:1, 1Ki 10:4, 1Ki 10:10, 1Ki 10:13, 2Ch 9:1, 2Ch 9:3, 2Ch 9:9, 2Ch 9:12

f p absolute

מְלָכוֹת, מְּלָכוֹת

Sng 6:9, Sng 6:8