מאוּם
blemish
also: spot, defect fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
17 distinct verses where H3971 appears in the Absolute state, across 7 books. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Leviticus 9 verses
- Leviticus 21:17 מ֔וּם n c ms "Say to Aaron, 'None of your seed throughout their generations who has a blemish, may approach to offer the bread of his God.
- Leviticus 21:18 מ֖וּם n c ms For whatever man he is that has a blemish, he shall not draw near: a blind man, or a lame, or he who has a flat nose, or any deformity,
- Leviticus 21:21 מ֗וּם מ֣וּם n c ms n c ms no man of the seed of Aaron the priest, who has a blemish, shall come near to offer the offerings of Yahweh made by fire. Since has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
- Leviticus 21:23 מ֣וּם n c ms He shall not come near to the veil, nor come near to the altar, because he has a blemish; that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am Yahweh who sanctifies them.'"
- Leviticus 22:20 מ֖וּם n c ms But whatever has a blemish, that you shall not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you.
- Leviticus 22:21 מ֖וּם n c ms Whoever offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh to accomplish a vow, or for a freewill offering, of the herd or of the flock, it shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein.
- Leviticus 22:25 מ֣וּם n c ms Neither from the hand of a foreigner shall you offer the bread of your God of any of these; because their corruption is in them. There is a blemish in them. They shall not be accepted for you.'"
- Leviticus 24:19 מ֖וּם n c ms If anyone injures his neighbor; as he has done, so shall it be done to him:
- Leviticus 24:20 מוּם֙ n c ms fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him.
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 2 verses
- Deuteronomy 15:21 מ֗וּם מ֣וּם n c ms n c ms If it have any blemish, [as if it be] lame or blind, any ill blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God.
- Deuteronomy 17:1 מ֔וּם n c ms You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, [or] anything evil; for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 2 verses
Song of Solomon 1 verse
Daniel 1 verse
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.
At its core, מאום (mʼûwm) means “blemish.” Scripture first uses it in Leviticus 21:17. It turns up in 19 verses across 8 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Leviticus (47%), then Deuteronomy and Job. Not a single-sense word: its full sense range also takes in “spot” and “defect”. Dig into 19-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3971 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 →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,412
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,412 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Leviticus 9 verses 47%
- Deuteronomy 3 verses 16%
- Job 2 verses 11%
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 19 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 13 verses · 68%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 26%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 5%
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†: Blemish 3×, He hath a blemish 2×, Was no blemish 2×
- American Standard Version†: Blemish 3×, Hath a blemish 2×, He hath a blemish 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Defect 4×, Blemish 2×, Flaw 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Blemish 13×, Is a blemish 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3971 across 21† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3971 across 21† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H3971 across 19† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3971 across 22† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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 6 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.
מאום I
- 1. of physical defect Dn 1:4. e.g. Daniel 1:4
- 2. fig. בְּכַפַּי דָּבַק מ׳ Jb 31:7 of moral stain; usually e.g. Job 31:7
מאום II
- 1. physical,
- a. in man, as excluding from priestly service, Lv 21:17, 18, 21(×2), 23; disfiguring man 2 S 14:25, woman Ct 4:7; (in all היה מ׳ בְּ); as caused by man upon man Lv 24:19, 20. e.g. Leviticus 21:17
- b. in beast (ref. to sacrifice) Lv 22:20, 21, 25; Nu 19:2; Dt 15:21(×2); 17:1 (in all היה מ׳ בְּ). e.g. Leviticus 22:20
- 2. fig. of moral blemish Dt 32:5 (but text very dubious, cf. Dr); תִּשָּׂא פָנֶיךָ מִמּוּם Jb 11:15; of shame of repulse Pr 9:7 (‖ קָלוֹן). e.g. Deuteronomy 32:5
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.m. Jb 31:7 blemish, defect (for מְאוּם, which, although found only late, is (si vera l.) appar.original form, Köii. 146);—מ׳ abs.:
I. n.m. Lv 21:17 (= foregoing; quiesc. א om.) (NH id.; Aramaic מוּמָא, ܡܽܘܡܳܐ );—abs. מ׳ Lv 21:17 + 16 times; sf. מוּמוֹ Pr 9:7; מוּמָם Dt 32:5;—blemish, defect (chiefly H):
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: as if passive participle from an unused root
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.
מאום
- , Y. Ab. Zar. V, 44ᵈ bot. למ׳ = לאמאום, v. אִמָּאוּס
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 13 distinct written forms H3971 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3971, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 19 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 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
- Leviticus 21:17
- Numbers 19:2
- Deuteronomy 15:21
- 2 Samuel 14:25
- Job 11:15
- Proverbs 9:7
- Song of Solomon 4:7
- Daniel 1:4
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.
