מָאן
vessel
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
- 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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Particle, Definite Article 4 times (57%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 3 times (43%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 7 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3984 appears — 7 distinct verses across 2 books. 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.
Ezra 4 verses
- Ezra 5:14 מָאנַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art The gold and silver vessels also of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor;
- Ezra 5:15 מָֽאנַיָּ֔/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art and he said to him, Take these vessels, go, put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be built in its place.
- Ezra 6:5 מָאנֵ֣י n c mp cs Also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought to Babylon, be restored, and brought again to the temple which is at Jerusalem, everyone to its place; and you shall put them in the house of God.
- Ezra 7:19 וּ/מָֽאנַיָּ/א֙ conj + n c mp det + ptcl def.art The vessels that are given you for the service of the house of your God, deliver you before the God of Jerusalem.
Daniel 3 verses
- Daniel 5:2 לְ/מָאנֵי֙ ptcl do + n c mp cs Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from it.
- Daniel 5:3 מָאנֵ֣י n c mp cs Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them.
- Daniel 5:23 וּ/לְ/מָֽאנַיָּ֨/א conj + ptcl do + n c mp det + ptcl def.art but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don't see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
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.
“vessel” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מאן (mâʼn). More than half of its appearances fall in Ezra. It appears 7 verses across 2 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. First canonically at Ezra 5:14, it enters the text early. Related forms include אנה, אני and את. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3984 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,835
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,835 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
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 7 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 100%
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).
- King James Version: Vessels 7×
- American Standard Version: Vessels 7×
- Berean Standard Bible: Articles 3×, Vessels 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Vessels 5×, Vessels of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3984 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3984 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3984 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3984 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- vessel, utensil
Word origin
[ מָאן ] n.m. vessel, utensil
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אנה (ʼânâh) (H579) — to meet.
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.
מַאן
- (cmp. מָא) who?, what?, which?; (relat.) who, which. [Targ. מַן.] Sabb. 57ᵃ, a. fr. מ׳ דכר וכ׳, v. דְּכַר I. Yeb. 107ᵇ מ׳ לא הודו לו who is meant by ‘they did not agree with him’? Ib., a. fr. מ׳ תנא who is the authority for the law just quoted?, i.e. whose opinion is here represented?—Ḥull. 50ᵃ אמר מ׳ דהו somebody said; Bets. 27ᵃ; M. Kat. 22ᵃ; (Nidd. 48ᵃ ר׳ זירא). Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ פוק חזי מ׳ בעי וכ׳ go out and see who it is that wants thee outside (an intimation of a teacher’s displeasure); Gen. R. s. 33 (some ed. מַן). Ber. 30ᵇ; Ḥull. 7ᵃ חזי מ׳ גברא וכ׳ see how great a man gives testimony about him. Y. Maas. Sh. II, 53ᵇ bot. מ׳ דאמר וכ׳ according to him who says &c.; a. v. fr.—V. מַן.
מָאַן
- , Pi. מֵיאֵן, מֵאֵן (b. h.; v. אֵין) to deny, refuse, esp.
- 1. (of a woman betrothed in childhood, on arriving at majority) to protest against, to annul one’s marriage. Yeb. XIII, 1 אין מְמָאֲנִין אלא ארוסות only betrothed (not married) women may have their obligation cancelled. Ib. מְמָאֶנֶת והיא קטנה וכ׳ she may protest (have her marriage cancelled) even while yet a minor, and even four or five times in succession. Ib. 2 איזו … שצריכה למָאֵן what minor is bound to make declaration (before leaving her husband)?—Ib. 4 הממאנת באיש וכ׳ if a woman refuses her husband by declaration, he is permitted to marry her kindred (who otherwise would be forbidden to him); a. v. fr.
- 2. to advise a protest. Eduy. VI, 1 שמְמָאֲנִים וכ׳ that the court eventually advises women married as minors to protest; Nidd. 8ᵃ; Ber. 27ᵃ.—V. מִיאוּן.
מָאן
- (v. preced.) [thing,]
- 1. vessel, utensil. Targ. Ps. II, 9. Targ. Lev. XI, 33; a. fr. (interch. with מָן, מַן).—B. Kam. 17ᵇ מ׳ תבירא תבר it was a broken vessel he broke. Ib. בתר תבר מ׳ אזלינן we judge by the final cause by which the vessel was broken; a. v. fr.—Pl. מָאנִין, מָאנַיָּא, מָאנֵי, מָנ׳. Targ. Ex. XI, 2; a. fr.—Sabb. 105ᵇ תבר מ׳ תבירי broke broken vessels (pretending to be angry); a. fr.
- 2. (cmp. כֶּלִי) garment, dress. Ib. 113ᵇ; Snh. 94ᵃ קרי למָאנֵיה וכ׳ called his dress (garments) &c., v. כָּבֵד I; B. Kam. 91ᵇ למאני (corr. acc.; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l.).—B. Mets. 47ᵃ במ׳ דכשר למקני ביה (symbolical possession has been given) by means of a garment fit for the purpose; a. fr.—Pl. as ab. Ber. 6ᵃ. Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ top; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵃ top מָאנוֹי, v. בְּזַע; a. fr.
- 3. (= h. קַנְקַן) [handle,] coulter of the plough. B. Mets. 80ᵃ
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 6 distinct written forms H3984 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| מָאנֵ֣י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Daniel 5:3 | 2 |
| וּ/לְ/מָֽאנַיָּ֨/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 5:23 | 1 |
| וּ/מָֽאנַיָּ/א֙ | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 7:19 | 1 |
| לְ/מָאנֵי֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Daniel 5:2 | 1 |
| מָֽאנַיָּ֔/א | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 5:15 | 1 |
| מָאנַיָּ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 5:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3984, 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.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 6 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 7 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
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.
