Hebrew word · H4152
מוּעָדָה
hamu'adah
designated
This word occurs only here. It is formed from the root yāʿad, 'to appoint, designate, fix (a time or place), summon to meet'. Related words: môʿēd ('appointed time; meeting', as in the 'tent of meeting') and, according to BDB, ʿēdāh ('congregation', an assembly that has been convened).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
cities appointed (of refuge)
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
This word occurs only here. It is formed from the root yāʿad, 'to appoint, designate, fix (a time or place), summon to meet'. Related words: môʿēd ('appointed time; meeting', as in the 'tent of meeting') and, according to BDB, ʿēdāh ('congregation', an assembly that has been convened).
- Against the English
Most versions: 'appointed' (KJV, NASB, BSB, WEB) or 'designated' (ESV, NIV). YLT's 'cities of meeting' follows the root more literally but sounds as if the cities were places of assembly, which the context does not suggest.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Septuagint has 'the designated (or proclaimed) cities' (epiklētoi). Compare Exodus 21:13, 'I will appoint (śamtî) for you a place to which he may flee', the earliest form of the provision.
Where it appears
Joshua · 1
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Joshua 20:9 הַמּֽוּעָדָ֜ה <the> appointing
These are the cities appointed for all the Israelites and foreigners among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.
Here: This word appears only here in the Bible. It comes from the root meaning 'to appoint, fix'. Literally it is 'the cities of the appointment', meaning cities officially set aside for this one purpose.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.