מְחִתָּה
destruction
also: ruin, terror, a breaking 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 9 times (82%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 2 times (18%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4288 appears — 11 distinct verses across 4 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.
Psalms 1 verse
Proverbs 7 verses
- Proverbs 10:14 מְחִתָּ֥ה n c fs Wise men lay up knowledge, But the mouth of the foolish is near ruin.
- Proverbs 10:15 מְחִתַּ֖ת n c fs cs The rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
- Proverbs 10:29 וּ֝/מְחִתָּ֗ה conj + n c fs The way of Yahweh is a stronghold to the upright, But it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity.
- Proverbs 13:3 מְחִתָּה n c fs He who guards his mouth guards his soul. One who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
- Proverbs 14:28 מְחִתַּ֥ת n c fs cs In the multitude of people is the king's glory, But in the lack of people is the destruction of the prince.
- Proverbs 18:7 מְחִתָּה n c fs A fool's mouth is his destruction, And his lips are a snare to his soul.
- Proverbs 21:15 וּ֝/מְחִתָּ֗ה conj + n c fs It is joy to the righteous to do justice; But it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity.
Isaiah 1 verse
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 17:17 לִ/מְחִתָּ֑ה prep + n c fs Don't be a terror to me: you are my refuge in the day of evil.
- Jeremiah 48:39 וְ/לִ/מְחִתָּ֖ה conj + prep + n c fs How is it broken down! [how] do they wail! how has Moab turned the back with shame! so shall Moab become a derision and a terror to all who are round about him.
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.
מחתה (mᵉchittâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “destruction.” Proverbs dominates its distribution — 7 of 11 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 11 verses — uncommon. It first appears in Psalms 89:40. Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “ruin”, “terror”, and “a breaking”. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4288 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
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 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 73%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 27%
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: Destruction 4×
- American Standard Version: Destruction 2×, Is a destruction 2×, Terror 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Terror 3×, Destruction 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Ruin 4×, Terror 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4288 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4288 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H4288 across 11 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4288 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 3 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.
- 1.
- a. terror, Is 54:14 (‖ עֹשֶׁק), Je 17:17; = obj. of terror, 48:39 (‖ שְׂחֹק). e.g. Isaiah 54:14
- b. dismay, Pr 21:15 (opp. שִׂמְחָה). e.g. Proverbs 21:15
- 2. ruin, of strongholds ψ 89:41; בְּאֶפֶם לְאֹם מ׳ רָזוֹן Pr 14:28 without people is ruin to a prince (opp. הַדְרַת־מֶלֶךְ); מ׳ דַּלִּים רֵישָׁם 10:15 the ruin of the poor (is) their poverty; as consequence of evil-doing מ׳ לְפֹעֲלֵי אָוֶן Pr 10:29 (opp. מָעוֹז); of fools פִּי כְסִיל מ׳־לוֹ 18:7, cf. 13:3 (opp. שֹׁמֵר נַפְשׁוֹ); פִּי אֱוִיל מ׳ קְרֹבָה 10:14 the mouth of a fool is imminent ruin. e.g. Psalms 89:41
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
n.f. terror, destruction, ruin, poet. (especially Pr)—abs. מ׳ Pr 10:14 + 8 times; cstr. מְחִתַּת Pr 10:15; 14:28;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חתה (châthâh) (H2846) — to seize.
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.
מַחְתָּה
- 1. coal-pan. Kel. II, 3 מ׳ פרוצה a coal-pan the rims of which are broken off (having a flat plate only), opp. ib. 7 מ׳ שלמה. Yoma V, 1; a. e.
- 2. snuff-dish.—Pl. מַחְתּוֹת. Men. 88ᵇ ואין מלקחיה ומַחְתּוֹתֶיהָ מן הככר the tongs and the snuff-dishes of the candlestick were not made out of the Kikkar of gold; Yalk. Ex. 369; a. e.
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 8 distinct written forms H4288 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| מְחִתָּה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 13:3 | 3 |
| וּ֝/מְחִתָּ֗ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 10:29 | 2 |
| וְ/לִ/מְחִתָּ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 48:39 | 1 |
| וּ/מִ֨/מְּחִתָּ֔ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 54:14 | 1 |
| לִ/מְחִתָּ֑ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 17:17 | 1 |
| מְחִתַּ֖ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Proverbs 10:15 | 1 |
| מְחִתַּ֥ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Proverbs 14:28 | 1 |
| מְחִתָּ֥ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 10:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4288, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
