Hebrew word · H4338

מֵישַׁע

umeisha'

Mesha

A personal name, probably formed from the root yšʿ, 'save, deliver', so 'deliverance' or '(Kemosh) has saved'. It is spelled mšʿ in Moabite.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A man of the Moabites living at the time of Divided Monarchy, only mentioned at 2Ki.3.4

§ Mesha = "deliverance"

the king of Moab in the time of Ahab and Jehoram

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 2 Kings 3:4

Range of meaning

A personal name, probably formed from the root yšʿ, 'save, deliver', so 'deliverance' or '(Kemosh) has saved'. It is spelled mšʿ in Moabite.

Against the English

The English name 'Mesha' is a plain spelling of the Hebrew, with nothing lost.

Used elsewhere in the period

Mesha is one of the few Bible figures whose own monument survives. The Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone, c. 840 BC, found at Dhiban in 1868) begins: 'I am Mesha son of Kemosh-[yat], king of Moab, the Dibonite'. It says Omri 'oppressed Moab many days, for Kemosh was angry with his land', and that Mesha later threw off Israel's rule.

Where it appears

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 3:4 וּמֵישַׁ֥ע and Mesha

    Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he would render to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams.

    Here: The Moabite king's name. His own inscription spells it mšʿ, probably from the root for 'save, deliver'. The word order puts the name first, so the narrator steps out of the story to give background: 'Now Mesha…'.

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