מַטָּרָא
maṭṭârâʼ · H4307 · Hebrew · 16 occurrences
Thing
- Prison, dungeonPrison and penal activity108 verses
Meanings
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courtyard of the guard
Literally: court of the guard; hence: a place in the royal palace, where certain prisoners were confined
ExamplesNehemiah 3:25 Palal the son of Uzai made repairs in front of the Angle and the tower projecting from the upper house of the king, which is by the courtyard of the guard. After him Pedaiah the son of Parosh made repairs.
Jeremiah 32:2 Now at that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, which was at the house of the king of Judah,
Jeremiah 32:8 “Then my uncle’s son Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard in accordance with the word of the LORD and said to me, ‘Buy my field, please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for you have the right of possession and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.
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Gate of the Guard
One of the city gates of Jerusalem
ExamplesNehemiah 12:39 and above the Gate of Ephraim, by the Ancient Gate, by the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel, and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate; and they stopped at the Gate of the Guard.
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target
A person, object, or place selected as the aim of a bowshot
Examples1 Samuel 20:20 “And I will shoot three arrows to the side, as though I shot at a target.
Job 16:12 “I was at ease, but He shattered me, And He has grasped me by my neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as His target.
Lamentations 3:12 He bent His bow And took aim at me as a target for the arrow.
How it’s used In 2 roles
Every occurrence, grouped by the words it is grammatically related to.
the word studied the word it goes with
After prepositionsPrepositional phrases
3 occurrences in 2 groups
- לto/for 4
- כlike/as 2
In phrases “… of it”It is the genitive
13 occurrences in 2 groups
- חָצֵרcourt, courtyard 12
- שַׁעַרgate 1
When two words share a role, as in “Paul and Barnabas said”, the verse appears under each, so a section’s counts can add up to more than the number of occurrences.
MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, available at https://github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek/, licensed CC BY 4.0; MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets © 2022-2024 by Biblica, Inc., CC BY 4.0. Westminster Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (hb.openscriptures.org), CC BY 4.0.
In the other Testament 1 word
- φυλακή phylakḗ · G5438 · jail, prison, guard post
- Hebrew מַטָּרָא denotes a place of confinement (prison/guard-post), directly rendered by Greek φυλακή in its concrete sense of guarded enclosure or prison.
Semantic domains 2 entries
- Names of Constructions003001003
- מַטָּרָא names the guardhouse or court of the guard, a specific structure where prisoners were kept, as in Jeremiah's imprisonment "in the courtyard of the guard" (Jeremiah 32:2; Nehemiah 3:25; 12:39).
- Objects001
- The same word also names a target, the mark aimed at in archery, as in Job's lament that God "has also set me up as His target" (Job 16:12) and Jonathan's target practice with Saul (1 Samuel 20:20).
Word family 3 words
Words formed from the same root. They share a form, not always a meaning.
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon H4307. mattara or mattarah מַטָּרָה and (Lam 3:12) מַטָּרָא noun feminine 1. guard, ward,…
or mattarah מַטָּרָה and (Lam 3:12) מַטָּרָא noun feminine 1. guard, ward, prison Neh 3:25.
2 target, mark (as kept in the eye, watched, compare נָצַר Pro 23:26, and σκόπος (watcher, mark) from σκέπτομαι; perhaps Nabataean [רתא]מט Lzb323); — always absolute: —
1 guard, ward, prison, usually הַמּ ׳חֲצַר court of gaurd (see I. ׳חָצֵ) Jer 32:2, Jer 32:8, Jer 32:12; Jer 33:1; Jer 37:21 (twice in verse); Jer 38:6, Jer 38:13, Jer 38:28; Jer 39:14-15, הַמּ ׳שַׁעַר Neh 12:39.
2 target, mark Job 16:12 (figurative of ׳יs chastisement), לַחֵץ כַּמַּטָּרָא Lam 3:12 (simile id.); literally only 1Sa 20:20.
Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain
Topical studies with this word 2 entries
Meanings adapted from the UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament, © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0 and the UBS Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (from the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew), © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0; MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, available at https://github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek/, licensed CC BY 4.0; MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets © 2022-2024 by Biblica, Inc., CC BY 4.0. Westminster Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (hb.openscriptures.org), CC BY 4.0.
Sources
eRhema lexical overview, based on the UBS Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and the UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (© United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Macula Hebrew and Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0); released under CC BY-SA 4.0
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