Hebrew word · H4928

מִשְׁמַ֫עַת

mishma'to

guard

From shama' ('hear, obey'). It means a body of people who 'listen to' and obey someone: subjects, or a personal guard (1 Sam 22:14; 2 Sam 23:23 / 1 Chr 11:25, David's bodyguard). It occurs only four times.

Appears 4 times in 4 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

1) subjects, body of subjects, bodyguard, listeners, obedient ones

1a) bodyguard

1b) subjects

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 Isaiah 11:14

Range of meaning

From shama' ('hear, obey'). It means a body of people who 'listen to' and obey someone: subjects, or a personal guard (1 Sam 22:14; 2 Sam 23:23 / 1 Chr 11:25, David's bodyguard). It occurs only four times.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and ESV 'obey them'; BSB and NIV 'be subject to them'. Both are accurate. The Hebrew is a noun, 'their obedient ones', describing a lasting status rather than one act of obeying.

Used elsewhere in the period

The use for David's guard shows it was a political term for people bound to obey a ruler. The supplied gloss 'guard' comes from those passages. Here the sense is wider: 'subjects'.

Similar words

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 22:14 מִשְׁמַעְתֶּ֖ךָ bodyguard your

    Ahimelech answered the king, “Who among all your servants is as faithful as David, the king’s son-in-law, the captain of your bodyguard and honored in your house?

2 Samuel · 1

  1. 2 Samuel 23:23 מִשְׁמַעְתּֽוֹ׃ ס bodyguard his

    He was most honored among the Thirty, but he did not become one of the Three. And David appointed him over his guard.

1 Chronicles · 1

  1. 1 Chronicles 11:25 מִשְׁמַעְתּֽוֹ׃ ס bodyguard his

    He was most honored among the Thirty, but he did not become one of the Three. And David appointed him over his guard.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 11:14 מִשְׁמַעְתָּֽם׃ [will be] subjects their

    They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.

    Here: From 'to hear, obey'. It names a body of people who obey someone: subjects, or a ruler's bodyguard (David's guard in 2 Sam 23:23). Ammon becomes 'their obedient ones', a subject people.

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