מָסַר
to set apart
also: deliver up, offer fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Niphal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Stem
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘offer’
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
1 distinct verse where H4560 appears in the Niphal stem, across 1 book. 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.
Numbers 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.
“to set apart” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb מסר (mâçar). The Hebrew Bible uses it only 2 verses. It clusters heavily in Numbers, which alone accounts for 100% of its uses. Its earliest occurrence is Numbers 31:5. Read the stem: it spans 2 stems, including Qal and Niphal. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4560 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Numbers 2 verses 100%
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 2 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 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: Commit 1×, Were delivered 1×
- American Standard Version: Commit 1×, Were delivered 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Turn 1×, Were recruited 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 1×, Commit 1×, Were provided 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4560 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4560 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4560 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4560 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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.
Qal
- offer (commit) a trespass against י׳
Niphal
- . delivered over to, assigned to (of warriors)
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
[ מָסַר ] vb. si vera l. deliver up, offer
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive 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.
מָסַר
- 1. to seize (v. Num. XXXI, 5).—Denom. מְסִירָה 1. e.g. Numbers 31:5
- 2. to hand over; to deliver, transmit. Ab. I, 1 ומְסָרָהּ וכ׳ and handed it (the Law) over to &c. (in the chain of tradition). B. Mets. 8ᵇ (expl. מוֹסֵירָה) כאדם המוֹסֵר דבר וכ׳ like one handing over (giving possession) &c. Ib. 111ᵇ bot. (expl. נשא את נפשו, Deut. XXIV, 15) דבר שמסר את נפשו עליו Ms. M. (ed. המוסר, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) a labor for which he binds (obligates) himself; [oth. explan.] ib. 112ᵃ מ׳ את עצמו למיתה (Ms. M. מ׳ לו נפשו עליו) he delivered himself to death, i.e. risked his life; (Ms. M. for which he surrendered his life to the employer); Sifré Deut. 279 מ׳ לך את נפשו he surrendered his life to thee (the employer); a. v. fr.—מ׳ דין על to surrender one’s case against a man (to Providence); v. דִּין. B. Kam. 93ᵃ; R. Hash. 16ᵇ; a. e.—Esp. a) to surrender a person to the authorities, to inform against. Gitt. 7ᵃ ובידי למָסְרָם למלכות it is in my power to bring them to judgment through the (Roman) government. Tosef. Ter. VII, 20 יהרגו כולם ולא יִמְסְרוּ וכ׳ let them all suffer death rather than surrender one Israelite &c.; a. fr.—V. מָסוֹר.—b) מ׳ עצמו (sub. למיתה) to suffer martyrdom. Pes. 53ᵇ שמָסְרוּ עצמן על קדושת וכ׳ who were ready to suffer death for the sanctification of the Name (of the Lord). Yalk. Ex. 182 אומה המוֹסֶרֶת עצמה וכ׳ a people that is ready to die for the unity of my Name; a. fr.—Part. pass. מָסוּר; f. מְסוּרָה; pl. מְסוּרִים, מְסוּרִין; מְסוּרוֹת. Kidd. 32ᵇ; B. Mets. 58ᵇ דבר המ׳ ללב וכ׳ to an injunction which is entrusted to the heart (over which human authorities have no control), the Text adds, ‘and thou shalt be afraid of thy God.’ Mekh. Ki Thissa (ref. to לכם, Ex. XXXI, 14) לכם שבת מ׳ ואי אתם מ׳ לשבת the Sabbath is given in your charge, but you are not surrendered to the Sabbath, i.e., there are higher objects for which the Sabbath law must eventually be violated; Yoma 85ᵇ; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 24:15
- to be delivered, transmitted. Num. R. s. 4 נִמְסְרָה לו בכורה the birth-right (priesthood) was transferred to him. B. Kam. 82ᵇ אין נִמְסָרִים בידכם they will not be given into your hands, you will have no power over them; Men. 64ᵇ. Y. Yoma III, 40ᵈ bot. לא היה נִמְסָר וכ׳ it (the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton) was not communicated to any but &c.; a. fr.
מְסַר
- Targ. Gen. XXXIX, 8. Targ. Am. I, 6. Targ. O. Deut. XXIV, 15; a. fr.—Part. pass. מָסִיר; f. מְסִירָא; pl. מְסִירִין; מְסִירָן. Targ. Num. III, 9; a. fr.—[Targ. Y. II, Gen. XVI, 5 מְסָרִין בידך, a corrupt., prob. to be read: מַסְרִית עלך; cmp. B. Kam. 93ᵃ.]—B. Mets. 8ᵇ מאן קא מ׳ ליה דליקני who is there to deliver it to him, that he might take possession? Y. Yoma III, 40ᵈ bot. אנא מָסֵר יתיה לך I will transmit it (the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton) to you. Koh. R. to III, 11 [read:] אית הכי בר נש דאִימְסוֹר ליה is there a person here to whom I might communicate it?; כד אתי מִימְסַר when he was about to communicate it. Kidd. 12ᵇ דמ׳ מודעא וכ׳ who enters a protest against his own letter of divorce. Ber. 20ᵃ הוו קא מָסְרֵי נפשייהו וכ׳ were ready to suffer martyrdom for the sanctification of the Name; אנן לא מַסְרִינָן וכ׳ we are not ready to suffer &c.; a. fr.
- to be surrendered, transmitted; to surrender one’s self. Targ. Lev. XXVI, 25. Targ. Ps. LXXIX, 11; a. e.—Gitt. 66ᵇ מִימַּסְרָן; 29ᵃ מִמַּסְרָן, v. מִילָּא II. Snh. 26ᵃ מִימַּסְרֵי have decided to surrender (to capitulate). Koh. R. l. c. ולא קבל עליה מִימְּסֵר ליה מימסר (some ed. למימסר ליה) he declined to have the Tetragrammaton transmitted to him (v. Y. Yoma l. c.).
מְסַר II
- (denom. of מְסָרָא) to saw. Targ. Is. XLIV, 13. Targ. II Sam. XII, 31 (ed. Wil. מְסַר); Targ. I Chr. XX, 3 (ed. Rahm. מסאר).—Part. pass. מְמַסַּר. Targ. I Kings VII, 9.
מַסָּר
- a tool with rough edges or teeth, file, saw. Sabb. XVII, 4 מ׳ הגדול saw for cutting wood. Kel. XXI, 3; Tosef. Kel. B. Bath. I, 8 מלבן של מ׳ הגדול the frame of the saw. Y. Succ. III, 53ᶜ bot. כמין מ׳ leaves serrated like a saw, v. מַגָּל; Tosef. Succ. II, 7; Bab. Succ. 34ᵃ דומה למ׳. Gen. R. s. 6; Midr. Sam. ch. IX, v. נָסַר; Ex. R. s. 5 כס׳ (Var. כמַסְמָר); 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 2 distinct written forms H4560 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַ/יִּמָּֽסְרוּ֙ | Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Numbers 31:5 | 1 |
| לִ/מְסָר | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Numbers 31:16 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 2 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 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.
