StrongerBible

masger

מַסְגֵּר

HebrewH4525“smith, prison, ...”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Ki 24:142Ki 24:16Psa 142:7(8)Isa 24:22Isa 42:7Jer 24:1Jer 29:2
Root family
Word studymas-GAIRnoun

What masger means

1

a smith: a skilled metalworker, named in the exile lists among the workers carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word turns up in only one setting: the record of who Nebuchadnezzar carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon. In all four places it stands right next to another word for a skilled worker (חָרָשׁ), and the two together read like a heading over a whole class of people, "the craftsmen and the smiths."

Both words are singular in Hebrew but plainly stand for groups, the way English can say a city lost its doctors and its teachers. The lists around them name the king, the queen mother, the court officials, and the fighting men. Metalworkers belong in that company for a hard practical reason: they made the weapons, the armor, and the tools. An empire wanted them for its own building projects, and it did not want them left behind to re-arm a beaten city.

What the name itself points to is less clear. It is built on a Hebrew verb meaning to shut or fasten (סָגַר), so older dictionaries render it "locksmith" and picture a maker of bolts and locks, while newer ones settle for the broader "metalworker." English versions divide the same way, printing "smiths," "metal workers," or simply "artisans."

2Ki 24:142Ki 24:16Jer 24:1Jer 29:2

Disputed

What trade the noun designates in the deportation notices: a metalworker generally, or specifically a maker of locks and bolts.

  • majorityA metal worker or smith in general; the term functions as a collective for the skilled metal trades removed in 597 BCE, paired with חָרָשׁ for artisans at large.; HALOT, s.v. מַסְגֵּר; DCH, s.v. מַסְגֵּר
  • minorityA locksmith, named from the bolts and fastenings he produced, the gloss that preserves the derivation from סגר "to shut."; BDB, s.v. מַסְגֵּר
2

a prison: a place where someone is shut in and cannot get out unaided

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Here the word means what its shape suggests, a place of shutting in. Isaiah 24:22 puts the verb and the noun in the same breath, so the line runs almost like "they are shut into a shutting-place," a play English cannot copy and translations flatten to "shut up in prison." In Isaiah 42:7 it stands beside another phrase for a lockup, "the house of confinement" (כֶּלֶא), in the promise that the LORD's servant will bring captives out into daylight.

The picture behind the word is not a modern jail with cells and sentences. Ancient confinement meant a pit, a dry cistern, a guarded room, or a walled yard, and its purpose was to hold a person rather than to serve out a term. That is why the same verse in Isaiah can set it alongside a pit (בּוֹר) without any sense of mixing pictures.

Psalm 142:7 turns the word on the singer's own life, asking God to bring his soul out of confinement so that he can thank God in public again. Whether that means an actual cell or stands for being cornered with nowhere to run, the force is the same: shut in, out of options, needing someone on the outside to open the door.

Psa 142:7(8)Isa 24:22Isa 42:7

What scholars say about masger

The standard lexica treat מַסְגֵּר as two entries under the root סגר I "to shut." HALOT and DCH give I "metal worker, smith" for the four deportation notices (2 Kings 24:14, 16; Jeremiah 24:1; 29:2) and II "prison, dungeon" for Isaiah 24:22; 42:7 and Psalm 142:8 in Hebrew numbering (142:7 in English versification). BDB keeps both under a single article, glossing the first "smith, locksmith" and so preserving the derivation from the verb: the artisan is named from the bolts and fastenings he produced. HALOT prefers the broader "metal worker" without committing to a specialization; the disagreement is over the referent's precision, not over the semantic field. In every instance of the first meaning the noun stands in a fixed collective pairing with חָרָשׁ, and the Kings and Jeremiah commentators take the pair as a summary designation for the skilled artisan class deported in 597 BCE, a standard measure for stripping a subject kingdom of its capacity to rearm. For the second meaning Isaiah 24:22 supplies an etymological figure, וְסֻגְּרוּ עַל־מַסְגֵּר, pairing the noun with the finite verb of the same root, while Isaiah 42:7 places it in poetic parallel with בֵּית כֶּלֶא and Psalm 142:8 applies it to the psalmist's own straits, where commentators divide over a literal versus a metaphorical confinement.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. מַסְגֵּרlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. מַסְגֵּרlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. מַסְגֵּרlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. סָגַרdictionary
  • Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings (Anchor Bible 11), at 2 Kings 24:14commentary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia), at Jeremiah 24:1commentary

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

All attested forms of מַסְגֵּר

m s absolute

מַּסְגֵּר, מַסְגֵּר

2Ki 24:14, 2Ki 24:16, Psa 142:7, Isa 42:7, Jer 24:1, Jer 29:2, Isa 24:22