Hebrew word · H4769

מַרְבֵּץ

marbetz

resting

A place where animals lie down or crouch to rest; a resting ground or lair. From the verb rabats, used of animals (and sometimes people) stretching out or crouching at rest.

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

What it means

1) place of lying down, resting or dwelling place

1a) of wild beasts

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 Ezekiel 25:5

Range of meaning

A place where animals lie down or crouch to rest; a resting ground or lair. From the verb rabats, used of animals (and sometimes people) stretching out or crouching at rest.

Against the English

BSB, WEB: "resting place". KJV: "couchingplace" (an old word for a place to lie down). YLT: "crouching". These are all close. "Fold" (used in some modern versions) adds the idea of an enclosure, which the word does not require.

Used elsewhere in the period

Zeph 2:15 says of fallen Nineveh, "a lair (marbets) for wild beasts." Zeph 2:9 speaks of Ammon becoming a desolation. Isa 17:2 uses the verb for flocks lying down in abandoned cities. Ancient Near Eastern treaty curses use the same picture: the Aramaic Sefire treaty wishes that Arpad become a mound where desert animals live.

Where it appears

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 25:5 לְמִרְבַּץ־ into a resting place of

    I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels, and Ammon a resting place for sheep. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’

    Here: "Into a lying-down place of." From the verb used for animals crouching or lying down to rest. The nation's territory becomes a place where flocks bed down undisturbed. It also echoes the sound of "Rabbah" (r-b).

Zephaniah · 1

  1. Zephaniah 2:15 מַרְבֵּץ֙ a resting place

    This carefree city that dwells securely, that thinks to herself: “I am it, and there is none besides me,” what a ruin she has become, a resting place for beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

    Here: 'A place for lying down', meaning a den where animals crouch. It picks up 'herds will lie down (rābəṣû) in her midst' from verse 14.

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