Hebrew word · H4901

מֶ֫שֶׁךְ

meshekh-

bag|price

Only a few occurrences.

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

What it means

1) a drawing, drawing up, drawing up a trail

1a) the drawing up, fishing up, securing, acquiring

1b) a trail (of seed)

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 Psalm 126:6

Range of meaning

Only a few occurrences. It comes from the verb mashakh, 'to draw, pull, drag, prolong.' Suggested meanings: (1) 'a drawing out,' the handful of seed taken out and scattered, or the 'trail' of seed left behind the sower (BDB); (2) a 'leather bag' or seed-pouch, linked by some scholars to Akkadian mašku, 'hide, skin' (this is the line HALOT takes); (3) 'price, value, acquisition,' as in Job 28:18, where 'the meshekh of wisdom is above pearls.'

Against the English

KJV 'precious seed' takes sense (3). BSB 'trail of seed' takes sense (1). YLT 'basket of seed' and NASB 'bag of seed' take sense (2). ESV, WEB and NIV ('seed for sowing,' 'seed to sow') sidestep the problem and translate what the phrase does rather than the noun itself.

How it drifted

The KJV translators followed the 'price' sense, perhaps under the influence of older Jewish and Protestant commentators. Over time 'precious seed' became a set phrase in English preaching and hymns, usually standing for the gospel or the Word.

Used elsewhere in the period

The closest parallel is Amos 9:13, which has the related participle in the phrase moshekh hazzara', 'the one who draws/scatters the seed,' meaning the sower. This points toward 'drawing out seed' as normal farm language. Job 28:18 shows the 'price/value' sense, but in a commercial setting. The LXX and Vulgate do not translate the noun; they turn the phrase into an action, 'casting their seeds' (Vulgate mittentes semina sua).

Similar words

Where it appears

Job · 1

  1. Job 28:18 וּמֶ֥שֶׁךְ and [the] price of

    Coral and quartz are unworthy of mention; the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 126:6 מֶֽשֶׁךְ־ <the> bag of

    He who goes out weeping, bearing a trail of seed, will surely return with shouts of joy, carrying sheaves of grain.

    Here: A rare word, and its exact sense is debated. It comes from mashakh, 'to draw, drag, pull out,' and most likely means either the seed drawn out by the handful as he scatters it (a 'trail' of seed), or the leather seed-bag he draws it from. The KJV's 'precious' follows a separate sense, 'price, value' (Job 28:18), which most scholars think less likely here.

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