Hebrew word · H2629

חָסַם

tachsom

to muzzle

To block, stop up, obstruct. Applied to a mouth, it means to muzzle. The related noun maḥsom means 'muzzle' (Psalm 39:1 [Heb. 39:2]: 'I will guard my mouth with a muzzle'). The verb is very rare: it occurs only here and in Ezekiel 39:11, where something blocks the way of travellers.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Qal) to stop up, muzzle

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

From the study of Deuteronomy 25:4

Range of meaning

To block, stop up, obstruct. Applied to a mouth, it means to muzzle. The related noun maḥsom means 'muzzle' (Psalm 39:1 [Heb. 39:2]: 'I will guard my mouth with a muzzle'). The verb is very rare: it occurs only here and in Ezekiel 39:11, where something blocks the way of travellers.

Against the English

'Muzzle' is accurate. Today the word suggests stopping an animal from biting. Here the point is stopping it from eating. The Hebrew picture is a mouth blocked off from the food right under it.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint renders it phimōseis ('you shall muzzle'). In 1 Corinthians 9:9 several important Greek manuscripts have kēmōseis, a word for a muzzle or nose-bag type restraint. Psalm 39 uses the related noun figuratively, for keeping one's own mouth shut.

Where it appears

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 25:4 תַחְסֹ֥ם you will muzzle

    Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

    Here: 'You (singular) shall muzzle'. The basic idea is to stop up or block something. The only other time the verb appears in the Hebrew Bible is Ezekiel 39:11, where something 'blocks' travellers. Here it means putting something over or around the animal's mouth so it cannot eat. The singular 'you' speaks to each Israelite farmer personally.

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 39:11 וְחֹסֶ֥מֶת and [will] block [the] way of

    And on that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It will block those who travel through, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.