Hebrew word · H4183

מוֹרַשְׁתִּי

hamorashti

Moresheth

A word naming someone by origin: 'one from Moresheth'. The town is Moresheth-gath (1:14), in the Shephelah (the low hills between Judah's highlands and the coastal plain), about 35 km southwest of Jerusalem. It is usually identified with Tell el-Judeideh.

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

What it means

§ Morasthite see Moreshethgath = "possession of Gath"

an inhabitant of Moresheth

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 Micah 1:1

Range of meaning

A word naming someone by origin: 'one from Moresheth'. The town is Moresheth-gath (1:14), in the Shephelah (the low hills between Judah's highlands and the coastal plain), about 35 km southwest of Jerusalem. It is usually identified with Tell el-Judeideh.

Against the English

KJV 'Morasthite' and BSB 'Moreshite' keep the form of an origin label. WEB and NIV 'of Moresheth' make the hometown clear.

Used elsewhere in the period

Jeremiah 26:18 calls him 'Micah the Morashtite' when it quotes Micah 3:12 about a century later. The Septuagint appears to have read the word as a family name ('the [son] of Morasthi').

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 26:18 הַמּ֣וֹרַשְׁתִּ֔י the Morasthite

    “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’

    Here: 'The man from Moresheth', that is Moresheth-gath (Micah 1:1, 14), a country town in the low hills south-west of Jerusalem. The label marks Micah as a provincial outsider, not part of the Jerusalem establishment, and that is part of why his attack on the capital stood out.

Micah · 1

  1. Micah 1:1 הַמֹּ֣רַשְׁתִּ֔י the Morasthite

    This is the word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

    Here: Identifies Micah by his hometown, Moresheth(-gath) in the Judean foothills (1:14), not by his father. He is a provincial, not a Jerusalem insider.

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