Hebrew word · H4803

מָרַט

yimaret

to smooth

To make bare or smooth: to pluck out hair (Ezra 9:3; Neh 13:25; Isa 50:6), to become bald (Lev 13:40–41), to polish metal (1 Kgs 7:45; Ezek 21:9–11 [Heb 21:14–16], the 'polished' sword).

Appears 14 times in 13 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to bare, polish, make smooth or bald or bare

1a) (Qal)

1a1) to make bare

1a2) to scour, polish

1b) (Niphal) to be made bald

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 Ezra 9:3

Range of meaning

To make bare or smooth: to pluck out hair (Ezra 9:3; Neh 13:25; Isa 50:6), to become bald (Lev 13:40–41), to polish metal (1 Kgs 7:45; Ezek 21:9–11 [Heb 21:14–16], the 'polished' sword).

Against the English

'Pulled out' / 'plucked off' are right. The supplied gloss 'to smooth' reflects the polishing sense, which does not apply here. Plucking is different from shaving the head (Job 1:20) or cutting the beard (Jer 41:5): it is more violent and more spontaneous.

Used elsewhere in the period

Isaiah 50:6 ('those who pluck out the beard') shows the act as a deep humiliation when done by others. Nehemiah 13:25 tells how Nehemiah, facing the same intermarriage problem a generation later, pulled out the hair of the offenders. Commentators often set the two side by side: Ezra turns the shame on himself, Nehemiah on the guilty.

From the study of Isaiah 18:7

Range of meaning

The verb marat covers smoothing by removing: plucking or pulling out hair (Ezra 9:3; Neh 13:25; Isa 50:6), polishing or burnishing metal (1 Kgs 7:45, burnished bronze; Ezek 21:9–11, a polished sword). The participle means smooth, polished, glossy, or bare of hair.

Against the English

'Smooth-skinned' (BSB, NIV), 'smooth' (WEB, ESV), 'peeled' (KJV, YLT). In KJV English 'peeled' meant stripped, bald, made bare. Today it suggests skin coming off in strips, or having been plundered.

How it drifted

Early Modern English 'pill/peel' meant to strip or make bald (also to plunder). That sense has faded, and readers now hear sunburn or suffering.

Used elsewhere in the period

The burnished-bronze and polished-sword uses suggest gleam. The hair-plucking uses suggest hairlessness. Ancient depictions of Nubians often show smooth, beardless or shaven faces and oiled, glossy skin, though which feature Isaiah had in mind cannot be fixed.

From the study of Nehemiah 13:25

Range of meaning

To pluck or tear out (hair), to make bare. Also to scour or polish metal, as with the ‘polished’ sword of Ezek 21:9–11 (21:14–16 in Hebrew), and to rub bare (Ezek 29:18, ‘every shoulder rubbed bare’). The basic idea is stripping a surface smooth.

Against the English

All the major English versions add “hair” (“pulled out / plucked off their hair”). The Hebrew has only “I plucked them.” Hair is the natural implication, but the text does not say whether it was beard or head hair. The supplied interlinear gloss “beard” is an interpretation.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ezra 9:3: Ezra, on hearing of the same kind of marriages, tears hair from his own head and beard as a sign of grief. Isa 50:6: the servant gives his cheeks “to those who pluck out the beard,” a picture of extreme insult. Compare 2 Sam 10:4–5, where Hanun's shaving of David's envoys' beards was a disgrace serious enough to start a war. The Septuagint (Greek translation) and Vulgate (Latin) both say “I made them bald.”

Where it appears

Leviticus · 2

  1. Leviticus 13:40 יִמָּרֵ֖ט it will become bare

    Now if a man loses his hair and is bald, he is still clean.

  2. Leviticus 13:41 יִמָּרֵ֖ט it will become bare

    Or if his hairline recedes and he is bald on his forehead, he is still clean.

1 Kings · 1

  1. 1 Kings 7:45 מְמֹרָֽט׃ polished

    and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD were made of burnished bronze.

Ezra · 1

  1. Ezra 9:3 וָאֶמְרְטָ֞ה and I pulled out !

    When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled out some hair from my head and beard, and sat down in horror.

    Here: "And I plucked out." The root's basic idea is 'make bare/smooth' (it is also used of polishing a sword), so here it means tearing hair out by hand, not cutting or shaving it. The extra -ah ending is a common feature of late Biblical Hebrew first-person narration and does not change the meaning.

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 13:25 וָֽאֶמְרְטֵ֑ם and I pulled out beard their

    I rebuked them and called down curses on them. I beat some of these men and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath before God and said, “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!

    Here: “And I plucked them bare.” The Hebrew says only “I plucked them.” Hair is implied but not named, so it may have been beard, head hair, or both. Tearing out someone's hair publicly was a deep humiliation.

Isaiah · 3

  1. Isaiah 18:2 וּמוֹרָ֔ט and smooth skinned

    which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.

  2. Isaiah 18:7 וּמוֹרָ֔ט and smooth skinned

    At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers—to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.

    Here: The verb is used for burnished bronze, a polished sword, and plucked-out hair. Here it means smooth, glossy-skinned, or hairless-faced, a striking physical look. It is not an insult and not a sign of suffering.

  3. Isaiah 50:6 לְמֹֽרְטִ֑ים to [those who] made [them] bare

    I offered My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard. I did not hide My face from scorn and spittle.

    Here: 'To those making [them] bare.' Paired with 'cheeks', this means tearing out the beard. The word 'beard' is not written but is plainly implied, so translations that supply it are right. This was a deep public dishonour.

Ezekiel · 6

  1. Ezekiel 21:9 מְרוּטָֽה׃ [is] polished

    “Son of man, prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘A sword, a sword, sharpened and polished—

  2. Ezekiel 21:10 מֹרָ֑טָּה it has been polished

    it is sharpened for the slaughter, polished to flash like lightning! Should we rejoice in the scepter of My son? The sword despises every such stick.

  3. Ezekiel 21:11 לְמָרְטָ֖ה מֹרָ֔טָּה to polish [it], it has been polished

    The sword is appointed to be polished, to be grasped in the hand. It is sharpened and polished, to be placed in the hand of the slayer.

  4. Ezekiel 21:28 מְרוּטָ֔ה [is] polished

    Now prophesy, son of man, and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says concerning the Ammonites and their contempt: ‘A sword! A sword is drawn for slaughter, polished to consume, to flash like lightning—

  5. Ezekiel 29:18 מְרוּטָ֑ה [was] made bare

    “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre. Every head was made bald and every shoulder made raw. But he and his army received no wages from Tyre for the labor they expended on it.

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