מִשְׁטָח

From the study of Ezekiel 26:5

Range of meaning

A place for spreading things out: a flat, open drying-ground. It comes from the verb shaṭaḥ, 'to spread out, lay flat', with the prefix mi- that makes 'place where' nouns. The noun occurs only three times, all in Ezekiel: 26:5, 26:14 and 47:10.

Against the English

English 'a place to spread nets' is accurate. It does not say why nets are spread: to dry them in the sun and mend them. The surface meant is bare, flat and empty, with nothing built on it.

Used elsewhere in the period

The verb is used for things spread out in the open to dry or lie exposed. The people spread out the quail around the camp in Numbers 11:32. A woman spreads grain over a covered well in 2 Samuel 17:19. Bones are spread out before the sun in Jeremiah 8:2. The Greek Septuagint translates this noun as psygmos, 'drying-place', and the Latin Vulgate as siccatio, 'drying'. Both read it as a place where nets are dried. In Ezekiel 47:10 the same phrase is a picture of blessing: the healed Dead Sea will be so full of fish that fishermen spread their nets from En-gedi to En-eglaim.

From the study of Ezekiel 47:10

Range of meaning

From the verb shaṭaḥ, 'to spread out' (grain to dry, or a net). Mishtoaḥ/mishtaḥ is a place where something is spread flat: a drying ground for nets. It appears only in Ezekiel (26:5, 26:14, 47:10).

Against the English

KJV 'a place to spread forth nets' and WEB/YLT 'spreading place' are literal. BSB turns it into an action ('they will spread their nets to catch fish'), which loses the picture of a shoreline covered in drying nets. The Septuagint and Vulgate both read it as a 'drying place'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ezek 26:5 and 26:14: Tyre, the proud island trading city, will become 'a spreading-place for nets in the midst of the sea', a bare rock that fishermen use only to dry their gear. The Septuagint renders both passages with psygmos sagēnōn, 'drying of dragnets'.