מְלֵחָה
mᵉlêchâh · H4420 · Hebrew · 3 occurrences
Meanings
-
salt land, salt waste
Land of which the soil contains a relatively high quantity of salt and other minerals that render it infertile so that only certain wild animals can live there
ExamplesJob 39:6 To whom I gave the wilderness as his home, And the salt land as his dwelling place?
Psalm 107:34 And a fruitful land into a salt waste, Because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
Jeremiah 17:6 “For he will be like a bush in the desert, And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt that is not inhabited.
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
1 occurrences in 1 groups
- לto/for 1
In phrases “… of it”It is the genitive
1 occurrences in 1 groups
- אֶרֶץland, earth, ground 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.
Near synonyms 2 words
- צִיָּה tsîyâh · H6723 · drought, dry land, desert
- Both denote barren, uninhabitable terrain; צִיָּה emphasizes aridity while מְלֵחָה emphasizes saline sterility, but both describe unproductive wasteland
- עֲרָבָה ʻărâbâh · H6160 · plain, steppe, desert
- Both refer to barren, desolate landscape; עֲרָבָה denotes arid desert plain while מְלֵחָה specifically denotes salt-barren terrain, but functionally synonymous in describing uninhabitable wasteland
Contrasting words 1 word
- כַּרְמֶל karmel · H3759 · new grain, fresh grain, farmland
- Direct lexical opposite: כַּרְמֶל denotes fertile, productive agricultural land while מְלֵחָה denotes barren, salt-infested sterile land incapable of cultivation
In the other Testament 1 word
- ἅλας hálas · G217 · salt
- Greek lexical equivalent for the 'salt' aspect of מְלֵחָה, commonly used in contexts describing salt land or saline soil (cf. Luke 14:34-35; Matt 5:13)
Semantic domains 1 entry
- Landscapes001002004
- מְלֵחָה names barren, salt-saturated land unfit for cultivation, as in the covenant curse turning fruitful land into "a salt waste" (Deuteronomy 29:23) and Job's image of the wilderness's salt land (Job 39:6).
Word family 8 words
Words formed from the same root. They share a form, not always a meaning.
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon H4420. melechah מְלֵחָה noun feminine saltness, barrenness; — Job 39:6 (|| עֲרָבָה) as…
מְלֵחָה noun feminine saltness, barrenness; — Job 39:6 (|| עֲרָבָה) as dwelling-place of wild ass, salt-plain; מְלֵחָה אֶרֶץ Jer 17:6 (|| תֵשֵׁב לֹא); Psa 107:34 (opposed to מְּרִי אֶרֶץ).
Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain
Topical studies with this word 1 entry
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
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.