to be like something, or to set two things side by side as alike: to resemble or to compare
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This verb runs along a single line: from passively being like something to actively holding two things up as a match. In the Psalms a person dreads becoming like the dead who go down to the pit (Psalm 28:1;Psalm 143:7), and a self-assured rich man is warned that he is like the beasts that perish (Psalm 49:12, 20). A defeated king is mocked as having become like everyone else in the grave (Isaiah 14:10), and a sufferer says he has been reduced to the likeness of dust and ashes (Job 30:19).
Turned outward, the same idea becomes a challenge: to whom will you compare God and make him an equal (Isaiah 46:5)? Here the word is no longer "I resemble" but "you set beside," one thing measured against another as its match.
That notion of setting one thing beside another to illuminate it is exactly what gives this root its second life as the word for proverbs and parables. A proverb (מָשָׁל) is at heart a comparison, which is why the same verb also means to speak one. For the plain "resemble" idea the nearest neighbor is דמה.
Nuances
1ato be like, to become like: the subject comes to resemble something else
1bto liken, to compare: to set one thing beside another as its equal
TranslatabilityDirect
Isa 46:5
2
to utter a figurative saying: to quote a proverb, or to compose a parable or taunt
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
To speak a proverb (a mashal) is to reach for a figurative saying, and the word covers a wide spread of them. It can mean repeating one that is already circulating: in Ezekiel the exiles pass around bitter sayings, such as the complaint that the fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge, and God vows to put an end to such talk (Ezekiel 12:23; 18:2, 3; 16:44).
It can equally mean composing a fresh parable or allegory on command, as when the prophet is told to lay out an elaborate picture of eagles and a vine (Ezekiel 17:2), or is dismissed by his hearers as nothing but a maker of riddles (Ezekiel 20:49). It stretches further still to the taunt-song, the mocking verse raised over a fallen enemy by the old ballad-makers (Numbers 21:27) or set as a boiling pot against a doomed city (Ezekiel 24:3).
What ties all of this together is that every such saying works by comparison, which is why this is the same verb that means "to be like."
Nuances
2ato quote or repeat a proverb: to voice a saying already in circulation
Ezk 12:23Ezk 16:44 (2×)Ezk 18:2Ezk 18:3
2bto compose or deliver a parable, allegory, or taunt-song: to frame a fresh figurative saying
Num 21:27Ezk 17:2Ezk 20:49(21:5)Ezk 24:3
Related words
The English words used to translate mashal
“liken”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“compare”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
Steps from mere likeness into speech: to coin and recite a proverb, parable, or taunt-saying, so that the comparison becomes a shaped public saying.Ezk 17:2Ezk 24:3Ezk 18:2Num 21:27
Turns a person or place into a byword, so that they become the standard example others point to when they want to picture ruin or scorn.Ezk 12:23Ezk 16:44Ezk 18:3
Both
Both name the act of setting one thing beside another as its equal, and both are used together to say that nothing can be placed beside God as comparable to him.Isa 46:5
Reaches beyond spoken comparison into the mind: it can mean to picture, plan, or intend something, treating an inward thought as a likeness of what one aims to do.Num 33:56Isa 10:7Isa 14:24Est 4:13
Names plain resemblance in appearance, where one thing simply looks or acts like another, with no saying or proverb involved.Sng 2:9Sng 2:17Psa 102:6Ezk 31:8
שׁוהto be equal or level with; it stresses matching worth or standing, where this word stresses likeness of form or nature.
Coins a proverb, parable, or taunt song; the noun mashal is this word's own product, so it covers speaking in figures, not merely resembling.Ezk 17:2Num 21:27Ezk 18:2
Pictures one thing becoming like another as a figure or image, as when a person is likened to dust and ashes, to the beasts, or to the dead going down to the pit.Job 30:19Psa 49:12Psa 28:1
Both
Both hold two things up as comparable, and Isaiah 46:5 stacks them in one breath: God asks to whom he could be made equal or set beside, and the answer is no one.Isa 46:5
Weighs one thing as equal in worth or value to another, as when nothing you could desire can match wisdom's price, or a matter is judged not worth the king's while.Pro 3:15Pro 8:11Est 3:8
Means to set or place something level, or to make a troubled soul calm and settled, a sense of leveling that has nothing to do with likeness.Psa 16:8Psa 131:2
mashal in the other biblical languages
ὁμοιόωGreek“to liken”the Greek verb for likening or comparing, the word Jesus uses to introduce a parable ("to what shall I liken the kingdom"); it matches this word's "be like" sense.
Means to utter a figurative saying, a proverb or parable (the noun "mashal"), not just to draw a comparison. Here the word is the act of speaking the saying itself.Num 21:27Ezk 17:2Ezk 18:2Ezk 24:3
Both
Both frame the rhetorical question "to whom, or to what, shall I compare this?" as a way of teaching by likeness.Mat 11:16Isa 46:5
Both can mean to be made like, or to become like, someone or something, so that the two share a real resemblance.Rom 9:29Job 30:19
Introduces the parables of Jesus with a set formula, "the kingdom of heaven is like" or "is likened unto" something. The word opens the comparison that the parable then unfolds.Mat 13:24Mat 18:23Mat 22:2Mat 25:1
παραβολήGreek“parable”the Greek noun "parable," the standard term for the kind of figurative saying this Hebrew verb produces.
What scholars say about mashal
The standard lexica recognize two verbal domains for this root: a "be like, compare" verb (BDB's משׁל I), attested in the niphal, hiphil, and hithpael, and a "to use a mashal" verb attested in the qal and piel, generally taken as denominative from the noun מָשָׁל. BDB and HALOT agree on the semantic range. TDOT's article on מָשָׁל derives the noun, and with it the proverb-verb, from the sense of comparison or representation, so that a mashal is fundamentally a likeness set beside its subject. A minority line, associated especially with A. R. Johnson, instead links the mashal word-group to a notion of a potent or authoritative utterance, keeping it apart from "be like." The denotations of the two verbs are not themselves in question; only their historical relationship is.
Where scholars disagree about mashal
Whether the verb's "be like / compare" sense and its "speak a proverb" sense stem from one root or two. A mashal is arguably a comparison, which would unite them, but a minority derives the proverb word-group from a separate notion of a weighty, authoritative saying.
majorityOne root: the proverb-verb grows out of "comparison," since a mashal sets one thing beside another to illuminate it.; TDOT, s.v. מָשָׁל
minorityTwo distinct verbs: the proverb word-group belongs with a sense of a potent or authoritative utterance, kept apart from "be like."; A. R. Johnson, 'משׁל', VTSup 3 (1955), 162-169
Sources
BDB, s.v. מָשַׁלlexicon
HALOT, s.v. משׁלlexicon
TDOT, s.v. מָשָׁלtheological-dictionary
A. R. Johnson, 'משׁל', VTSup 3 (1955), 162-169article