Hebrew word · H2003
הֶ֫מֶס
hamasim
brushwood
It occurs only here in the Bible, so its meaning has to be worked out from context, from ancient translations, and from related words in other Semitic languages. Modern standard lexicons (BDB, HALOT) give 'brushwood, dry twigs, kindling'.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
brushwood
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
It occurs only here in the Bible, so its meaning has to be worked out from context, from ancient translations, and from related words in other Semitic languages. Modern standard lexicons (BDB, HALOT) give 'brushwood, dry twigs, kindling'. An older line of interpretation tied it to the root māsas, 'to melt, dissolve', and took it as 'meltings' or 'things that melt'.
- Against the English
KJV has 'the melting fire burneth' (a fire that melts). BSB, WEB and most modern versions have 'brushwood' or 'twigs'. YLT has 'stubble'.
- How it drifted
This is not drift over time but an old disagreement about how to read the word. The 'melt' reading goes back to the Septuagint ('as wax melts before fire') and the Vulgate ('tabescerent', they would melt), and the KJV inherited it. It may also have been helped by the wax-melting imagery of similar appearance-of-God passages (Mic 1:4; Ps 97:5).
- Used elsewhere in the period
No other biblical occurrence. In Micah 1:4, an appearance of God with very similar imagery, mountains melt 'like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a slope'. The two traditions of interpretation may reflect that Micah passage as well as the root.
Where it appears
Isaiah · 1
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Isaiah 64:2 הֲמָסִ֗ים brushwood<s>
as fire kindles the brushwood and causes the water to boil, to make Your name known to Your enemies, so that the nations will tremble at Your presence!
Here: This word appears only here in the Bible. Most modern lexicons take it as dry twigs or brushwood, the kind of fuel that flares up the moment it is lit. Ancient translators linked it to a root meaning 'melt', which is where 'melting fire' (KJV) and 'as wax melts' (Septuagint) come from.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.