Hebrew word · H4113

מַהֲמֹרָה

bemahamorot

flood

Appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Traditional sense: deep pit. Many lexicons connect it to a root meaning 'to pour out (water)' (compare Arabic hamara, 'to pour'), which gives 'watery pits, floods' or 'pits full of water and mud'. The supplied data glosses it 'flood'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

a flood, a pit of water, watery pit

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 Psalm 140:10

Range of meaning

Appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Traditional sense: deep pit. Many lexicons connect it to a root meaning 'to pour out (water)' (compare Arabic hamara, 'to pour'), which gives 'watery pits, floods' or 'pits full of water and mud'. The supplied data glosses it 'flood'.

Against the English

KJV and NASB have 'deep pits'. BSB, WEB, ESV and NIV have 'miry pits', a guess that combines both proposals. NLT has 'watery pits'. All are reasonable guesses; none is certain.

Used elsewhere in the period

No other biblical occurrence. The Septuagint translators did not recognise a pit and wrote 'in miseries' (en talaipōriais). Jerome's translation from the Hebrew renders it as pits. Related imagery: the 'pit' (bôr) and 'miry clay' of Ps 40:2; the cistern of Jer 38:6; pit and Sheol as parallel words in Ps 30:3; 88:4–6.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 140:10 בְּ֝מַהֲמֹר֗וֹת in pits

    May burning coals fall on them; may they be thrown into the fire, into the miry pits, never to rise again.

    Here: This word appears only here in the Bible, so its meaning is uncertain. It is probably a deep pit, perhaps a watery one. Such pits stood for the descent to the grave. The enemies who dug traps (v. 5) end up in the pit.

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