מֵאָה
hundred
‘hundred’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
Every verse where H3967 appears in the Book of 1 Samuel — 18 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
1 Samuel
- 1 Samuel 11:8 מֵא֣וֹת adj Cardinal number bp He numbered them in Bezek; and the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.
- 1 Samuel 13:15 מֵא֖וֹת adj Cardinal number bp Samuel arose, and got him up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.
- 1 Samuel 14:2 מֵא֖וֹת adj Cardinal number bp Saul abode in the uttermost part of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people who were with him were about six hundred men;
- 1 Samuel 15:4 מָאתַ֥יִם adj Cardinal number bd Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
- 1 Samuel 17:7 מֵא֥וֹת adj Cardinal number bp The staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head [weighed] six hundred shekels of iron: and his shield-bearer went before him.
- 1 Samuel 18:25 בְּ/מֵאָה֙ prep + Adjective Cardinal number bs Saul said, Thus shall you tell David, The king desires no dowry except one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king's enemies. Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 18:27 מָאתַ֣יִם adj Cardinal number bd and David arose and went, he and his men, and killed of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full number to the king, that he might be the king's son-in-law. Saul gave him Michal his daughter as wife.
- 1 Samuel 22:2 מֵא֖וֹת adj Cardinal number bp Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered themselves to him; and he became captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.
- 1 Samuel 22:7 מֵאֽוֹת adj Cardinal number bp Saul said to his servants who stood about him, Hear now, you Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds,
- 1 Samuel 23:13 מֵא֣וֹת adj Cardinal number bp Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went wherever they could go. It was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he gave up going there.
- 1 Samuel 25:13 מֵאוֹת֙ וּ/מָאתַ֖יִם adj Cardinal number bp conj + Adjective Cardinal number bd David said to his men, Gird you on every man his sword. They girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the baggage.
- 1 Samuel 25:18 מָאתַ֨יִם וּ/מֵאָ֥ה וּ/מָאתַ֣יִם adj Cardinal number bd conj + Adjective Cardinal number bs conj + Adjective Cardinal number bd Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched grain, and one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
- 1 Samuel 27:2 מֵא֥וֹת adj Cardinal number bp David arose, and passed over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath.
- 1 Samuel 29:2 לְ/מֵא֖וֹת prep + Adjective Cardinal number bp The lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands; and David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish.
- 1 Samuel 30:9 מֵא֥וֹת adj Cardinal number bp So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the brook Besor, where those who were left behind stayed.
- 1 Samuel 30:10 מֵא֣וֹת מָאתַ֣יִם adj Cardinal number bp adj Cardinal number bd But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so faint that they couldn't go over the brook Besor.
- 1 Samuel 30:17 מֵא֧וֹת adj Cardinal number bp David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day: and there not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men, who rode on camels and fled.
- 1 Samuel 30:21 מָאתַ֨יִם adj Cardinal number bd David came to the two hundred men, who were so faint that they could not follow David, whom also they had made to abide at the brook Besor; and they went forth to meet David, and to meet the people who were with him: and when David came near to the people, he greeted them.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
מאה — transliterated mêʼâh — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “hundred.” Translators differ — “hundred” in the King James Version, then “were” (unfoldingWord Literal Text), as the renderings breakdown shows. With 512 verses in 25 books, it is one of the most common word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 5:3. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 512-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3967 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 512
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 512 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #84
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 84 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 512 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Numbers 85 verses 17%
- Genesis 63 verses 12%
- 2 Chronicles 52 verses 10%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 512 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 204 verses · 40%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 175 verses · 34%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 133 verses · 26%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Hundred 418×, Two hundred 64×, Hundreds 19×
- American Standard Version†: Hundred 409×, Two hundred 66×, Hundreds 22×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Hundred 132×, Hundreds 26×, Two hundred 17×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Were 105×, Years 35×, Hundreds 26×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3967 across 578† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 22 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 3 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3967 across 577† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 31 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3967 across 226† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 352 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3967 across 313† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 24 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 283 further occurrences.
9 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 9 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
מאה I hundred (NH id.
- 1. as simple number:
- a. abs. sg., (1) foll. by sg. of noun enumerated: מֵאָה קְשִׂיטָה Gn 33:19; Jos 24:32 (both E); מ׳ אִישׁ Ju 7:19; 1 K 18:13; 2 K 4:43; מ׳ אַמָּה 1 K 7:2; Ez 40:19 +; מ׳ כִּכָּר 2 K 23:33; 2 Ch 25:6; 27:5; 36:3; Ezr 8:26; מ׳ אֶלֶף = 100,000 1 K 20:29 + 6 times K Ch; cf. also Gn 17:17 (P), 2 S 8:4; Is 65:20;(×2), and sq. n. coll. רֶכֶב 2 S 8:4 = 1 Ch 18:4, צֹאן 1 K 5:3; (2) less often sq. pl. מֵאָה שְׁעָרִים Gn 26:12 (J), מ׳ פְּעָמִים 2 S 24:3 = 1 Ch 21:3, מ׳ נְבִיאִים 1 K 18:4, etc.; (3) seldom, and late, preceded by n.pl.: הָרִמֹּנִים מֵאָה Je 52:23, אַמּוֹת הַמֵּאָה Ez 42:2, cf. Ezr 2:69; 2 Ch 3:16; 4:8; 29:32; (4) exceptional is כְּלֵי כֶסֶף מֵאָה לְכִכָּרִים Ezr 8:26; also, with ellipsis, מֵאָה כֶסֶף Dt 22:19 (i.e. shekels); מֵאָה קַיִץ 2 S 16:1 (i.e. cakes); (5) מֵאָה without noun enumerated, especially = a hundred (men, persons) Ju 20:10(×2) Am 5:3(×2) Lv 26:8(×2) (H), 1 Ch 12:14; מ׳ Pr 17:10 = 100 (blows), Ec 6:3 = 100 (children), 8:12 = 100 (times).—On Ne 3:1; 12:39 v. infr. e.g. Genesis 33:19
- b. abs. du., (1) foll. by sg., מָאתַיִם אִישׁ 1 S 18:27; 30:10; 2 S 15:11, מ׳ לֶחֶם 1 S 25:18; 2 S 16:1, מ׳ צִנָּה 1 K 10:16 = 2 Ch 9:15, מ׳ אֶלֶף 1 S 15:4 +, מ׳ שָׁנָה Gn 11:23 (P); (2) less often sq. pl. מ׳ שְׁקָלִים Jos 7:21 (JE), 2 S 14:26, מ׳ דְּבֵלִים 1 S 25:18, מ׳ אֲנָשִׁים 1 S 30:21, cf. Ezr 8:4; (3) also preceded by n.pl.: עִזִּים מ׳ Gn 32:15, רְחֵלִים מ׳ v 15 (E), הָרִמּוֹנִים מ׳ 1 K 7:20, cf. 1 Ch 15:8; 2 Ch 29:32; Ezr 2:65; (4) c. ellipsis מ׳ כֶּסֶף Ju 17:4; (5) as pred., רָאשֵׁיהֶם מ׳ 1 Ch 12:32 (v 33 Van d. H.). e.g. 1 Samuel 18:27
- c. abs. pl. מֵא(וֹ)ת:—(1) alone, = hundreds, לְמֵאוֹת 1 S 29:2 by hundreds, so 2 S 18:4 (both + thousands); especially (הַ)מּ׳ שָׂרֵי captains of (the) hundreds Ex 18:21, 25 (E), 2 K 11:4, 9, 10, 15 +; (2) multiplied, sq. noun enumerated, in sg.: שְׁלשׁ מ׳ אִישׁ Ju 7:6 300 men, cf. v 7, 8, 16; 8:4 Ex 12:27 (E), etc.; אַרְבַּע מ׳ שָׁנָה Gn 15:13 (JE) 400 years; חֲמֵשׁ מ׳ אֶלֶף 2 S 24:9 500,000, cf. 2 Ch 13:17; שֵׁשׁ מ׳ רֶכֶב Ex 14:7 (J) 600 chariots; שְׁבַע מ׳ אִישׁ Ju 20:15, 16 700 men; שְׁמֹנֶה מ׳ חָלָל 2 S 23:8 800 slain; תְּשַׁע מ׳ רֶכֶב Ju 4:3, 13 900 chariots; (3) less often sq. n.pl.: שְׁלשׁ מ׳ שׁוּעָלִים Ju 15:4 300 foxes; חֲמֵשׁ מ׳ מֲתוֹנוֹת Jb 1:3 500 she-asses, etc.; (4) rare, and chiefly late, after n.pl. פִּלַגְשִׁים שְׁלשׁ מ׳ 1 K 11:3 300 concubines, cf. 7:42 = 2 Ch 4:13, 1 Ch 4:42; 2 Ch 14:8 etc.; after n.coll. בָּקָר חֲמֵשׁ מ׳ 2 Ch 35:9; (5) rare is חֲמֵשׁ מ׳ בַּשֶּׁקֶל Ex 30:24 (P); (6) ellipsis of n., שְׁלשׁ מ׳ כֶּסֶף Gn 45:22 (E), etc. e.g. 1 Samuel 29:2
- d. cstr. sg., only sq. sg., and late: מְאַת־שָׁנָה Gn 11:10; 21:5; 25:7 (all P) + 25 times P, 2 Ch 25:9; Est 1:4 (DrIntr. 124) (also c. other numerals, v. 2 infr.); מְאַ֖ת Ec 8:12 = 100 times (מֵאָה פְּעָמִים), sc. פַּעַם, or perhaps only appar. cstr. (Köii. 228 cf. Ew§ 269 b. 279 e).—Ne 5:11 v. 3 infr. e.g. Genesis 11:10
- 2. as part of larger number:
- a. usually preceding tens and units, (1) with noun expressed once, or not at all, earlier usage, usually c. וְ before ten if no unit follows, otherwise without וְ before ten (see Köii. 218 ff.); מֵאָה וְעֶשֶׂר שָׂרִים Ju 2:8; שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת שִׁשִּׁים וָשֵׁשׁ כִּכָּר 1 K 10:14 666 talents, etc. (exceptions are Ne 7:24 and v 31); (2) chiefly late, with noun and וְ repeated: מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים Gn 23:1 (P) (cf. ואלף אמה ומאת אמה SI 5, 6 DaExpos. Times, May, 1898). e.g. Judges 2:8
- b. less often, foll. tens and units, chiefly late, c. וְ repeated:—עֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה Nu 7:86 (P); שֶׁבַע וּשְׁלשִׁים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה Ex 6:16 (P), etc.; c. noun after ten and after hundred, חָמֵשׁ וְשִׁשִּׁים שָׁנָה וּשְׁלשׁ מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה Gn 5:23 (P), etc.—On these usages v., further, Köii. 217 ff. DaSynt. §§ 36 R. 3, 37 (d) Ges§§ 97, 134 and especially Herner Synt. d. Zahlwörter im AT (1893). e.g. Numbers 7:86
- 3. מְאַת הַכֶּסֶף Ne 5:11 = a hundredth part of the money; but read quite poss. מַשַּׁאת the debt (GeiJüd. Zeitschr. viii. 1870, 227 Gr.) e.g. Nehemiah 5:11
מאה II used as n.pr. of tower on northern wall of Jerus., מִגְדַּל הַמֵּאָה Ne 3
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. n.f. hundred (NH id.; MI 20 מאתן (du.); SI5 מאת, מאתים (du.); Ph. מאת, מאתם (du.); Assyrian mê (prob., Dl§ 75), TelAm. me-at WklTelAm. 20; Arabic مِاىَٔةٌ; Sab. מאת, מאתם OsZMG x. 1856, 49; CIS iv. i. 6, 4; 46, 6; מאה EutSin. 457; Ethiopic ምእት:; Aramaic מְאָה, ܡܳܐܐ; Palm. תלת מאה 300 VogPalm. 6, 4; Nab. מאה EutNab 8, 9);—מ׳ Gn 6:3 + 144 times; cstr. מְאַת 5:3 + 30 times (on מְאַת Ec 8:12 v. 1 d infr.); pl. abs. מֵאוֹת Gn 5:9 + 324 times (מֵאֹת only 5:4, 30); המאיות Kt 2 K 11:4 + 3 times 2 K 11; du. מָאתַיִם (-תָ֑יִם) Gn 11:19 + 76 times (but 1 S 18:27 read מֵאָה (מְאַת) 𝔊𝔊 We Dr Kit Bu HPS);—hundred:—
II. n.f. used as n.pr. of tower on northern wall of Jerus., מִגְדַּל הַמֵּאָה Ne 3:1; 12:39.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: properly, a primitive numeral; a hundred
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
מֵאָה
- (b. h.) one hundred. Tosef. Ber. VII (VI), 24 מ׳ מצות one hundred religious acts. Ib. 8; a. v. fr.—Pesik. Vattom., p. 131ᵇ מ׳ חסר שתים ninety-eight; a. fr.—Du. מָאתַיִם. Ex. R. s. 23; Mekh. B’shall., s. 6. Macc. I, 2. Keth. I, 2, v. כְּתוּבָּה; a. fr.—Pl. מֵאוֹת. Macc. 23ᵇ; a. fr.
מְאָה
- Targ. Gen. V, 3, sq.; a. fr.—Du. מָאתַיִן, מָאתָן. Ezra VI, 17.—Targ. Gen. XXXII, 15; a. fr.—Pl. מַאֲוָון. מָאוָן, מְאַוָותָא. Targ. II Sam. XVIII, 4 ed. Lag. (ed. מאתן; corr. acc.). Targ. I Sam. XXIX, 2.—Targ. O. Ex. XVIII, 21 מְאַוָתָא ed. Berl. (oth. ed. מַאֲוָ׳; Y. מַאֲוָו׳); a. fr.—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ bot. תלת מ׳ צומין three hundred fasts; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵃ bot. מאתן (corr. acc.). Y. Naz. V, end, 54ᵇ תלת מ׳ נזירין three hundred Nazarites; תשע מ׳ קרבנין nine hundred sacrifices; (Y. Ber. VII, 11ᵇ bot.; Gen. R. s. 91 תלת מאה, תשע מאה); a. fr. e.g. Ezra 6:17
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 101 distinct written forms H3967 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 41 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3967, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 452 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 512 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 5:3
- Exodus 6:16
- Leviticus 26:8
- Numbers 1:21
- Deuteronomy 1:15
- Joshua 7:21
- Judges 2:8
- 1 Samuel 11:8
- 2 Samuel 2:31
- 1 Kings 5:16
- 2 Kings 3:4
- 1 Chronicles 4:42
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
