StrongerBible

maset

מַשְׂאֵת

HebrewH4864“signal, gift, ...”

Appears 15 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 43:34 (3×)Jdg 20:38Jdg 20:402Sa 11:82Ch 24:62Ch 24:9Est 2:18Psa 141:2Jer 6:1Jer 40:5Ezk 20:40Amo 5:11Zep 3:18
Word studyResearch-grademas-ATEnoun

What maset means

something lifted up or borne: a raised signal, a portion or gift carried to someone, or a payment rendered to an authority

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word grows straight out of a verb meaning "to lift, carry, or bear," and that single idea holds all its uses together. Whatever it names is either something raised up into view or something carried to (or from) another person. The scholarship that studies it stresses this unity: the word is not a bundle of unrelated meanings but one idea seen in many settings.

From that root the word fans out across ordinary life:

  • a column of smoke or a beacon-fire raised to signal an army
  • a portion of food carried from a host's table to honor a guest
  • gifts handed down by a king with open-handed generosity
  • a tax or tribute lifted from the people and owed to an authority
  • the choicest offerings presented upward to God
  • the worshiper's own hands lifted in evening prayer

What decides the meaning in any given verse is who is doing the lifting and to whom the thing is brought. In a society organized around gifts, tributes, offerings, and signals, one word could name the physical act of exchange itself, and English simply has no equivalent that stretches so far. That is why translators reach for a different word almost every time it appears.

Nuances

1aa raised signal: a rising column of smoke or a beacon-fire lifted up to send a message across distance
Jdg 20:38Jdg 20:40Jer 6:1
1ba portion or gift bestowed by a superior: food or presents carried down from a host's or king's own table to honor the one who receives them
Gen 43:34 (3×)2Sa 11:8Est 2:18Jer 40:5
1ca required payment lifted from people and rendered to an authority, whether an oppressive levy or a prescribed sacred tax
2Ch 24:62Ch 24:9Amo 5:11
1dan offering lifted up to God: the choicest of one's contributions presented in worship
Ezk 20:40
1ethe lifting up of the hands in prayer
TranslatabilityApproximate
Psa 141:2
1fa burden of reproach (a contested, sui generis use)
CertaintyContested
Zep 3:18
Zep 3:18

How to read this word in Zephaniah 3:18, one of the most textually damaged verses in the book: as a burden of reproach that the exiles have become, or as something else the corruption hides.

  • contestedThe traditional Hebrew text stands, and the word means a burden of reproach: the scattered mourners have themselves become a reproach that weighs on the city.; Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (Anchor Bible), on Zephaniah 3:18; Marvin A. Sweeney, Zephaniah (Hermeneia), on Zephaniah 3:18; J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Old Testament Library), on Zephaniah 3:18
  • contestedThe verse is too corrupt to be certain; the ancient Greek translation reads "woe" here, pointing to a different original word than the traditional Hebrew, and some instead read the phrase as a lifting up of reproach against her.; Septuagint (LXX), Zephaniah 3:18

What scholars say about maset

All lexica (BDB; HALOT; DCH V; Gesenius18, ed. Meyer/Donner 2013) derive מַשְׂאֵת from the root נשׂא "lift, carry, bear" and treat it as a maqtal-t formation with feminine ending, distinct from the masculine cousin מַשָּׂא (whose nun assimilates); the boundary between the two is defended morphologically but crossed semantically at Lam 2:14 (Budde, Löhr; not tagged to this lemma in the present corpus). The sense inventory converges on six clusters: rising smoke-column and beacon-signal (Judg 20:38,40; Jer 6:1, with Lachish Ostracon IV line 10 as a near-contemporary technical parallel per Holladay, Lundbom, McKane); a portion of honor borne from the host's table (Gen 43:34; 2 Sam 11:8; so Sarna, Wenham, McCarter, with the fivefold portion read as Joseph's test); royal largesse (Esth 2:18; Jer 40:5; Levenson, Fox, Berlin distinguishing the material gift from the הֲנָחָה tax-remission of the same verse); a fiscal levy or tribute (Amos 5:11, which Shalom Paul reads as a technical grain-tax on the strength of the Phoenician-Punic cognate mśʼt "payment, tax"; 2 Chr 24:6,9, the archaizing name for the Mosaic half-shekel Temple-tax, LXX φόρος, per Japhet and Klein); a cultic offering "lifted up" to God alongside תְּרוּמָה (Ezek 20:40; Zimmerli, Greenberg, Block); and the raised palms of prayer (Ps 141:2, paralleled with incense and the evening cereal-offering; Hossfeld/Zenger, Kraus, Allen), with Northwest and East Semitic gesture-parallels (Ugaritic Kirta nšʾa yd; Akkadian našû qāti; Frechette, AOAT 379). The most illuminating comparative parallel for the whole range is Akkadian biltu (√wbl), which likewise spans load, yield, rent, tribute, and burden. Two occurrences are genuine cruxes: Zeph 3:18 (widely regarded as the most corrupt verse in the book) and, outside this corpus, the maśʼēt/maśśāʼ overlap at Lam 2:14. TLOT (Stolz) rejects the abstract-to-concrete ordering used by Gesenius and BDB, and DCH and HALOT likewise decline to rank the senses hierarchically.

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

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מַשְׂאֵתlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. מַשְׂאֵתlexicon
  • Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. V, s.v. מַשְׂאֵתlexicon
  • Fabry, "נשׂא," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. Xtheological-dictionary
  • Stolz, "נשׂא," in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT)theological-dictionary
  • Shalom M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), on Amos 5:11commentary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia), on Jeremiah 6:1commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20 (Anchor Bible), on Jeremiah 6:1commentary
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary), on Genesis 43:34commentary
  • P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel (Anchor Bible), on 2 Samuel 11:8commentary
  • Jon D. Levenson, Esther (Old Testament Library), on Esther 2:18commentary
  • Sara Japhet, I and II Chronicles (Old Testament Library), on 2 Chronicles 24commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia), on Ezekiel 20:40commentary
  • Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger, Psalms 3 (Hermeneia), on Psalm 141:2commentary
  • Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (Anchor Bible), on Zephaniah 3:18commentary
  • Marvin A. Sweeney, Zephaniah (Hermeneia), on Zephaniah 3:18commentary
  • Charles R. Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary (OLA 90), s.v. mśʼtlexicon
  • Christopher G. Frechette, Mesopotamian Ritual-prayers of "Hand-lifting" (AOAT 379)monograph

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

All attested forms of מַשְׂאֵת

f s construct

מַשְׂאַת

Gen 43:34, Jdg 20:38, 2Sa 11:8, 2Ch 24:6, 2Ch 24:9, Psa 141:2, Amo 5:11

f s absolute

מַשְׂאֵת, מַּשְׂאֵת

Est 2:18, Jer 6:1, Jer 40:5, Zep 3:18, Jdg 20:40

f p absolute

מַשְׂאֹת

Gen 43:34

f p construct

מַּשְׂאֹת

Gen 43:34

f p construct

מַשְׂאוֹתֵיכֶם

Ezk 20:40