StrongerBible

misgav

מִשְׂגָּב

HebrewH4869“fortress, high tower, ...”

Appears 17 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Sa 22:3Psa 9:9(10) (2×)Psa 18:2(3)Psa 46:7(8)Psa 46:11(12)Psa 48:3(4)Psa 59:9(10)Psa 59:16(17)Psa 59:17(18)Psa 62:2(3)Psa 62:6(7)Psa 94:22Psa 144:2Isa 25:12Isa 33:16Jer 48:1
Root family
Word studyResearch-grademis-GAHVnoun

What misgav means

a place set so high it cannot be reached, and so a place of perfect safety

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

The word names a height that an attacker simply cannot climb to: a lookout or fortress perched out of reach on a cliff or hilltop. Because nothing hostile can get up to it, it becomes the safest place there is. The picture and the safety are one idea, not two. What is too high to be reached is, for that very reason, secure.

The Bible uses that single picture in two settings. A few times it points to a real fortified upland, the kind of walled height a city trusted to keep it safe. Far more often the poets turn it into a name for God. When a person under attack says God is their high place, they mean God is the unreachable height where nothing can get at them. Almost every time the word appears it is on the lips of someone in trouble, confessing that God himself is that refuge.

The emphasis falls on the height, not just the shelter. Other words say God hides or shelters his people; this one says he lifts them up out of reach. The smallest and most beaten-down person is carried up to where no enemy can follow. That is why it stacks up so naturally alongside rock, crag, and fortress in the great songs of trust: each adds a facet, and this one adds the vertical lift to safety.

Nuances

1aGod himself as the unreachable height where a person in trouble is safe
2Sa 22:3Psa 9:9(10) (2×)Psa 18:2(3)Psa 46:7(8)Psa 46:11(12)Psa 48:3(4)Psa 59:9(10)Psa 59:16(17)Psa 59:17(18)Psa 62:2(3)Psa 62:6(7)Psa 94:22
1ba real fortified height, the walled stronghold of a city
Isa 25:12Isa 33:16Jer 48:1
Jer 48:1

Whether the word here is the common noun "the stronghold" or the proper name of a Moabite town, Misgab.

  • majorityIt is the common noun "the stronghold," a stock label for Moab's fortified upland; the verb agreement is explained by the stronghold standing for the fortified city, and no town named Misgab is known from any other source.; W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1989), pp. 342-43; J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 37-52, AYB 21C (Doubleday, 2004), pp. 268-72; J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, NICOT (Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 700-701
  • minorityIt is the proper name of a Moabite town, Misgab; the verb forms and the article suit a city-name, and the Greek translators transliterated rather than translated it.; Older reading preserved in the KJV and JPS marginalia

What scholars say about misgav

The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, Gesenius 18th ed., DCH) and the theological dictionaries (TDOT, TWOT, NIDOTTE) agree on a single core: built on the root meaning "to be too high, unreachable," the noun names a secure height, and so a stronghold or refuge. The chain of thought is height, then unreachability, then safety, with the last step turned toward God. Of the seventeen occurrences, thirteen are in the Psalms, and in most of them the word is a title for God, piled together with rock, fastness, and shield. Jerome Creach's study of refuge language in the Psalter places this word within the larger shelter cluster and identifies it as the spatial intensification into height, refuge that is up out of reach, and notes that such refuge language describes God's ongoing presence rather than any single past act of rescue. Comparative work (Lipinski) treats the root as a Hebrew and Aramaic specialty rather than a wider Semitic inheritance; the Greek translators of the Psalms regularly replaced the spatial picture with a relational title meaning "supporter," a deliberate softening of the stone-and-mountain imagery (Olofsson, Pietersma).

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, p. 960, s.v. שׂגב, מִשְׂגָּבlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, vol. 2, p. 641 (מִשְׂגָּב); vol. 4, pp. 1306-07 (שׂגב)lexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), vol. V, pp. 510-11lexicon
  • H. Ringgren, 'שׂגב śāgaḇ; מִשְׂגָּב miśgāḇ,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. XIV, pp. 34ff.theological-dictionary
  • A. H. Konkel, 'שׂגב,' in NIDOTTE, vol. 3theological-dictionary
  • J. F. D. Creach, Yahweh as Refuge and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, JSOTSup 217 (Sheffield Academic, 1996), esp. ch. 2 and p. 34monograph
  • S. Olofsson, God Is My Rock: A Study of Translation Technique and Theological Exegesis in the Septuagint, ConBOT 31 (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990), chs. 3-4monograph
  • W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1989), pp. 342-43commentary
  • J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 37-52, AYB 21C (Doubleday, 2004), pp. 268-72commentary

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

All attested forms of מִשְׂגָּב

m s absolute

מִשְׂגָּב, מִּשְׂגָּב

Psa 9:9, Psa 9:9, Psa 46:7, Psa 46:11, Psa 48:3, Psa 59:16, Psa 94:22, Jer 48:1

m s construct

מִשְׂגַּבִּי

2Sa 22:3, Psa 18:2, Psa 59:9, Psa 59:17, Psa 62:2, Psa 62:6, Psa 144:2

m s construct

מִשְׂגַּב

Isa 25:12

m s construct

מִשְׂגַּבּוֹ

Isa 33:16