Hebrew word · H4388

מַכְתֵּשׁ

hamakhtesh

hollow

Built on the verb kātaš, 'to pound, crush'. A maktēš is first a mortar, the hollow stone bowl grain or spices were pounded in (Prov 27:22: 'though you pound a fool in a mortar'). By extension it means any bowl-shaped hollow: a basin or depression in the ground. The word also served as a place name.

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

What it means

mortar

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 Judges 15:19

Range of meaning

Built on the verb kātaš, 'to pound, crush'. A maktēš is first a mortar, the hollow stone bowl grain or spices were pounded in (Prov 27:22: 'though you pound a fool in a mortar'). By extension it means any bowl-shaped hollow: a basin or depression in the ground. The word also served as a place name.

Against the English

'Hollow place' (KJV, BSB, WEB, YLT) is accurate but loses the picture of a mortar, a stone bowl. KJV's 'hollow place that was in the jaw' turns it into a hollow in the jawbone, meaning a tooth socket.

How it drifted

The drift does not come from this word itself. It comes from reading the neighbouring word 'Lehi' as 'jaw', which forces the 'hollow' into the bone.

Used elsewhere in the period

Prov 27:22 (a grinding mortar). Zeph 1:11: 'Wail, inhabitants of the Maktesh', the name of a low-lying district of Jerusalem, so a 'mortar' could name a terrain feature. In later Hebrew the word came to describe basin-shaped landforms. Modern Israeli usage (Makhtesh Ramon) builds on this.

Similar words

Where it appears

Judges · 1

  1. Judges 15:19 הַמַּכְתֵּ֣שׁ the deep hollow

    So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, and it remains in Lehi to this day.

    Here: Literally a mortar, the bowl grain is pounded in (Prov 27:22). Here it is a bowl-shaped hollow in the ground or rock, a known landmark at Lehi.

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 27:22 בַּֽמַּכְתֵּ֡שׁ in <the> mortar

    Though you grind a fool like grain with mortar and a pestle, yet his folly will not depart from him.

    Here: 'In the mortar', literally 'the pounding-place', a hollowed stone bowl. With 'you pound' it makes a sound-play: tikhtōsh … makhtēsh, 'pound him in the pounder'.

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