Hebrew word · H4205

מָזוֹר

mazor

wound

A wound or sore, especially an open one that oozes and needs pressing, cleaning and binding. BDB connects it with the root zwr / zrr, "press, squeeze out." In Obadiah 7 the same spelling is sometimes taken as a different word meaning "trap" or "net."

Appears 3 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) wound

1a) wound (fig. of injury to or sufferings of Israel or Judah)

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 Hosea 5:13

Range of meaning

A wound or sore, especially an open one that oozes and needs pressing, cleaning and binding. BDB connects it with the root zwr / zrr, "press, squeeze out." In Obadiah 7 the same spelling is sometimes taken as a different word meaning "trap" or "net."

Against the English

English "wound" can suggest a clean cut. The Hebrew picture is closer to a running sore that will not close. Jeremiah 30:12–13 uses the word for Judah's "incurable" injury, with "no healing, no remedy for your sore."

Used elsewhere in the period

Jeremiah 30:13 and Hosea 5:13 are the clearest uses. The related verb appears in Isaiah 1:6, describing Judah as covered in "wounds and welts and open sores, not pressed out (zoru), not bound up, not softened with oil." That verse also shows how wounds were treated at the time.

From the study of Jeremiah 30:13

Range of meaning

Rare. It is used of a sickness or sore in Hos 5:13 (twice: "Judah saw his māzôr… he cannot cure you of your māzôr") and here. Obadiah 7 has a word spelled the same that most take as "trap" or "net", probably a different word. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it to the root zûr, "press, squeeze out", and suggest either a festering, swollen sore (something to be pressed out) or the compress or bandage pressed onto it.

Against the English

KJV/WEB "that thou mayest be bound up" and YLT "to bind up" take it as dressing the wound. BSB/NIV/ESV take it as the wound itself ("sore(s)", "wound").

Used elsewhere in the period

Isaiah 1:6 uses the same root in a medical picture of the nation: wounds and fresh blows "not pressed out (zōrû), not bound up, not softened with oil." Hosea 5:13 uses māzôr of Judah's political sickness, which an Assyrian king could not cure. Jeremiah's image is drawn from this prophetic tradition.

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 30:13 לְמָז֑וֹר to a sore

    There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sores, no recovery for you.

    Here: "For a wound." A rare word, probably a festering or swollen sore, from a root meaning "press, squeeze." The main pause of the Hebrew verse falls here, so it closes the first half: no one takes up her case with a view to treating her wound. Older translations took it as "binding up."

Hosea · 2

  1. Hosea 5:13 מְזֹר֔וֹ מָזֽוֹר׃ wound his, [the] wound

    When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

    Here: An open, festering sore that needs to be pressed clean and bandaged. It is more graphic than a bare "wound." It answers the "rot" of v. 12.

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