מָטַר
rain
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.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
31 distinct verses where H4306 appears in the Absolute state, across 12 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.
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 9:33 וּ/מָטָ֖ר conj + n c ms Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands to Yahweh; and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured on the earth.
- Exodus 9:34 הַ/מָּטָ֧ר ptcl def.art + n c ms When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
Deuteronomy 2 verses
- Deuteronomy 11:17 מָטָ֔ר n c ms and the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky, so that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which Yahweh gives you.
- Deuteronomy 32:2 כַּ/מָּטָר֙ prep det + n c ms My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My speech shall condense as the dew, As the small rain on the tender grass, As the showers on the herb.
1 Samuel 2 verses
- 1 Samuel 12:17 וּ/מָטָ֑ר conj + n c ms Isn't it wheat harvest today? I will call to Yahweh, that he may send thunder and rain; and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of Yahweh, in asking you a king.
- 1 Samuel 12:18 וּ/מָטָ֖ר conj + n c ms So Samuel called to Yahweh; and Yahweh sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared Yahweh and Samuel.
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 1:21 מָטָ֛ר n c ms You mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain on you, neither fields of offerings: For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
- 2 Samuel 23:4 מִ/מָּטָ֖ר prep + n c ms [He shall be] as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, [When] the tender grass [springs] out of the earth, Through clear shining after rain.
1 Kings 4 verses
- 1 Kings 8:35 מָטָ֖ר n c ms When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you do afflict them:
- 1 Kings 8:36 מָטָר֙ n c ms then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.
- 1 Kings 17:1 וּ/מָטָ֑ר conj + n c ms Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the foreigners of Gilead, said to Ahab, As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
- 1 Kings 18:1 מָטָ֖ר n c ms It happened after many days, that the word of Yahweh came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain on the earth.
2 Chronicles 3 verses
- 2 Chronicles 6:26 מָטָ֖ר n c ms When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you do afflict them:
- 2 Chronicles 6:27 מָטָר֙ n c ms then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.
- 2 Chronicles 7:13 מָטָ֔ר n c ms If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
Job 6 verses
- Job 5:10 מָ֭טָר n c ms Who gives rain on the earth, And sends waters on the fields;
- Job 28:26 לַ/מָּטָ֣ר prep det + n c ms When he made a decree for the rain, And a way for the lightning of the thunder;
- Job 29:23 כַ/מָּטָ֣ר prep det + n c ms They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain.
- Job 36:27 מָטָ֣ר n c ms For he draws up the drops of water, Which distill in rain from his vapor,
- Job 37:6 מָטָ֑ר מִטְר֥וֹת n c ms n c mp cs For he says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth;' Likewise to the shower of rain, And to the showers of his mighty rain.
- Job 38:28 לַ/מָּטָ֥ר prep det + n c ms Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 72:6 כְּ/מָטָ֣ר prep + n c ms He will come down like rain on the mown grass, As showers that water the earth.
- Psalms 135:7 לַ/מָּטָ֣ר prep det + n c ms Who causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth; Who makes lightnings with the rain; Who brings forth the wind out of his treasuries;
- Psalms 147:8 מָטָ֑ר n c ms Who covers the sky with clouds, Who prepares rain for the earth, Who makes grass grow on the mountains.
Proverbs 2 verses
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 4:6 וּ/מִ/מָּטָֽר conj + prep + n c ms There will be a pavilion for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a refuge and for a shelter from storm and from rain.
- Isaiah 5:6 מָטָֽר n c ms I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, But it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it."
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 10:13 לַ/מָּטָר֙ prep det + n c ms when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
- Jeremiah 51:16 לַ/מָּטָר֙ prep det + n c ms when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
Zechariah 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.
“rain” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מטר (mâṭar). Its earliest occurrence is Exodus 9:33. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 36 verses — moderately common. Related forms include מטר and מטרי. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4306 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 →
- 36
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 36 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #947
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 947 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 36 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 6 verses 17%
- Job 6 verses 17%
- 1 Kings 4 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 36 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 14 verses · 39%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 14 verses · 39%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 8 verses · 22%
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†: Rain 28×, Be no rain 2×, Is no rain 2×
- American Standard Version†: Rain 29×, Is no rain 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Rain 31×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Rain 27×, Rain of 3×, Like rain 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4306 across 38† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4306 across 38† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4306 across 37† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4306 across 38† 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 2 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. guard, ward, prison, usually חֲצַר הַמּ׳ court of guard (v. i. חָצֵר) Je 32:2, 8, 12; 33:1; 37:21(×2); 38:6, 13, 28; 39:14, 15; Ne 3:25; שַׁעַר הַמּ׳ 12:39. e.g. Jeremiah 32:2
- 2. target, mark Jb 16:12 (fig. of י׳’s chastisement), כַּמַּטָּרָא לַחֵץ La 3:12 (sim. id.); lit. only 1 S 20:20. e.g. Job 16:12
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. Ex 9:33 rain (Assyrian meṭru, DlHWB 406; Arabic مَطَرٌ; Sab. (Min.) מטר HomChrestom. 127, Aramaic מִטְרָא, ܡܶܛܪܳܐ );—מ׳ Ex 9:33 + 30 times; cstr. מְטַר Dt 11:11 + 5 times; pl.cstr. מִטְרוֹת Jb 37:6;—rain, as watering earth, especially Canaan, Dt 11:11 מ׳ הַשָּׁמַיִם; as blessing sent (vb. usually נָתַן) and withheld by י׳, Dt 11:14 (‖ יוֹרֶה, מַלְקוֹשׁ); v 17 (here מְ׳ אַרְצְכֶם); 28:12 1 K 8:35, 36; 17:1 (‖ טַל), 18:1 2 Ch 6:26, 27; 7:13 Jb 5:10 (‖ מַיִם), cf. 28:26; 36:27 ψ 147:8 (vb. מֵכִין); so מְ׳ זַרְעֲךָ Is 30:23 Zc 10:1 (‖ מַלְקוֹשׁ), v 1 מְטַר־גֶּשֶׁם; גֶּשֶׁם מָטָר Jb 37:6, גֶּשֶׁם מִטְרוֹת עֻזּוֹ v 6 (‖ שֶׁלֶג); 38:28 (‖ אֶגְלֵי־טָ֑ל) בְּרָקִים לַמּ׳ ψ 135:7 Je 10:13 = 51:16 (‖ הֲמוֹן מַיִם); also in נָתַן אֵת מְ׳ אַרְצְךָ אָבָק וְעָפָר Dt 28:24; cf. Is 5:6 (where acc. cogn. with הִמְטִיר); wish of David 2 S 1:21 (‖ טַל); מ׳ בַּקָּצִיר sim. of the unseasonable, Pr 26:1 (‖ שֶׁלָג בַּקַּיִץ); sent by extraord. supernat. power as sign Ex 9:33, 34 (J; both ‖ בָּרָד, קֹלוֹת) cf. 1 S 12:17, 18 (‖ קֹלוֹת); sim. of refreshment Dt 32:2 (‖ טַל), Jb 29:23 (‖ מַלְקוֹשׁ), ψ 72:6 (‖ רְבִיבִים). cf. 2 S 23:4; as destructive Pr 28:3 (מָטָר סֹחֵף); also fig., Is 4:6 (‖ זֶרֶם).
I. and (La 3:12) מַטָּרָא n.f. 1. guard, ward, prison. 2. target, mark (as kept in the eye, watched, cf. נָצַר Pr 23:26, and σκόπος (watcher, mark) from σκέπτομαι; perhaps Nab. מט[רתא] Lzb323);—always abs.:—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מטר (mâṭar) (H4305) — to rain.
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.
מָטָר
- טרר to drip; cmp. טָרַד) rain. Taan. 6ᵇ (ref. to תִּמָּטֵר, Am. IV, 7) תהא מקום מ׳ it will be a place where the rain will stand (in pools). Ib. 9ᵃ מ׳ בשביל יחיד rain is sent for the sake of an individual; a. fr. e.g. Amos 4:7
מָטַר
- , Hif. הִמְטִיר (b. h.; denom. of preced.) to let rain. Tanḥ. ed. Bub., B’shall. 20 הייתי מַמְטִיר וכ׳ I let rain bread &c.
מְטַר
- Af. אַמְטַר same. Targ. Y. Gen. II, 5. Targ. O. ib. XIX, 24.
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 27 distinct written forms H4306 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 H4306, 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
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 36 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 36 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
- Exodus 9:33
- Deuteronomy 11:11
- 1 Samuel 12:17
- 2 Samuel 1:21
- 1 Kings 8:35
- 2 Chronicles 6:26
- Job 5:10
- Psalms 72:6
- Proverbs 26:1
- Isaiah 4:6
- Jeremiah 10:13
- Zechariah 10:1
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.
