מָעַד
to slip
also: slide, totter, shake fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H4571 appears in the Book of Psalms — 4 distinct verses. 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
- Psalms 18:36 מָ֝עֲד֗וּ Qal pf 3cp You have enlarged my steps under me, My feet have not slipped.
- Psalms 26:1 אֶמְעָֽד Qal impf 1cs Judge me, Yahweh, for I have walked in my integrity. I have trusted also in Yahweh without wavering.
- Psalms 37:31 תִמְעַ֣ד Qal impf 3fs The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide.
- Psalms 69:23 הַמְעַֽד Hiphil impv 2ms Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can't see. Let their backs be continually bent.
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.
The Hebrew verb מעד centers on the idea of “to slip.” Psalms dominates its distribution — 4 of 6 verses. Spanning 6 verses in 3 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its earliest occurrence is 2 Samuel 22:37. The verb spans 3 stems, from Qal to Pual. 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 H4571 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,040
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,040 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 6 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 6 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 83%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 17%
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: Did not slip 2×
- American Standard Version: Feet have not slipped 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Give way 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Slip 3×, Do 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4571 across 6 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4571 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H4571 across 7 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4571 across 10 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.
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. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel).
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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. מָֽעֲדוּ 2 S 22:37=ψ 18:37; Impf. 3 fs. תִּמְעַד ψ 37:31; אֶמְעָ֑ד ψ 26:1; Pt. pl. cstr. מוֹעֲדֵי Jb 12:5;—slip, subj. feet, (fig.) 2 S 22:37=ψ 18:37, Jb 12:5; subj. אֲשֻׁרָיו ψ 37:31; cf. ψ 26:1. e.g. 2 Samuel 22:37
Pual
- Pt. מוּעָ֑דֶת (=מְמוּ׳ Ges§ 53 s; or old Qal Pt. pass.,—cf. BaNB 273;—but pass. not needed here, read perhaps מוֹ׳ Qal Pt. act. v. SchwallyZAW x, 1890, 176);—רֶגֶל מ׳ Pr 25:19 (sim. of untrustworthiness). e.g. Proverbs 25:19
Hiphil
- Pf. וְהִמְעַדְתָּ֫ (so read for ℌ והעמדת, cf. Sm Co Da Berthol) Ez 29:7; cause to shake obj. כָּל־מָתְנַיִם, i.e. make them totter; cf. Imv. דַמְעַ֑ד (obj. id.) ψ 69:24. e.g. Ezekiel 29:7
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
vb. slip, slide, totter, shake (only Heb.);—
— 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.
עַד
- turn, continuation; (prep.) up to, until, during, while; in place of. B. Mets. 87ᵃ; Snh. 107ᵇ עד אברהם up to Abraham’s time, v. זִקְנָה. B. Kam. 55ᵃ עד שאתה שואלני וכ׳ during the time that &c., instead of asking me &c. Gen. R. s. 58 עד שלא ישקיע וכ׳ before yet the Lord causes the sun of one righteous man to set, he causes that of another to rise. Kidd. 29ᵇ עד כ׳ שנה until a person is twenty years old. Ib. 31ᵃ עד היכן כיבוד וכ׳ how far does the duty of honoring parents go?; a. v. fr.—Ber. 26ᵇ (ref. to ib. IV, 1 ‘up to four hours’) עד וָעַד בכלל וכ׳ does it mean ‘up to’, and that ‘up to’ included, i.e. including the whole fourth hour of the day, or excluding the fourth hour? Nidd. 58ᵇ לימא בעד ועד בכלל קמיפלגי shall we say, their difference turns on the question whether ‘until’ is meant to include or to exclude the terminus? Ib. איכא עד ועד בכלל ואיכא עד ולא עד בכלל sometimes ‘until’ means inclusive of, and sometimes exclusive of. Ib. קמיפלגי בעד ועד דהכא they differ as to the meaning of the word ‘until’ in this case (in the Mishnah); a. fr.—בַּעַד, בְּעַד (cmp. עֲבוּר) in behalf of, for, about. Midr. Till. to Ps. IV וכי … הפונדק בַּעֲדֵינוּ (our w. missing in ed. Bub.) has that innkeeper opened his shop for the first time today, for our benefit? Midr. Till. to Ps. XII שאל בַּעֲדוֹ וכ׳ he inquired about him, where is he?; a. e.—וָעֶד, v. עוֹלָם.
עַד ²
- Targ. Gen. II, 5. Ib. XIV, 14; a. v. fr.—B. Bath. 21ᵃ עד שית לא תקביל up to six years of age admit no child to school. Gen. R. s. 44ᵃ, a. e. עד דסנדלך, v. כּוּבָּא I. Lam. R. to III, 20 עד דשמינא וכ׳, v. חֲשִׁיךְ II; a. fr.
עֹד
- v. עוֹד
עד
- , Targ. O. Lev. XI, 13 ed. Amst., v. עַר.
עֵד
- [present, confirming,] (cmp. סהד) witness, evidence. Ḥull. 10ᵇ, a. e. עד אחד נאמן וכ׳ in matters of ritual the statement of one witness is sufficient. Bekh. 36ᵃ, a. e. עד מפי עד a witness testifying to what he has heard from an eye-witness. R. Hash. 26, a. e. אין עד נעשה דיין a witness in the case cannot act as judge. Keth. 21ᵇ עד נעשה דיין a witness may act as judge; a. v. fr.—Pl. עֵדִים. Ib. דיינים המכירין חתימות ידי ע׳ if the judges know (can identify) the signatures of the witnesses to a document. Ib. II, 3 הע׳ שאמרו וכ׳ if witnesses declare, this is our signature, but we have been forced &c. Ib. 5 אם יש ע׳ וכ׳ if there is evidence that she was a married woman.—Kidd. 48ᵃ, a. fr. עידֵי חתימה, ע׳ מסירה, v. כְּרַת; a. v. fr.—Trnsf. evidence, proof. Sabb. 81ᵃ אם יש עליה עד (euphem.) if there is an evidence (stain of excrements) on it. B. Kam. 11ᵃ top (ref. to Ex. XXII, 12) יביא עד עורה Ar. (ed. אדורה, עדודה, v. אָדַר) he shall offer in evidence its hide.—Esp. a piece of cloth used by women for ascertaining their condition of cleanness or uncleanness. Nidd. VIII, 4 עד שהוא נתון וכ׳ if an examining rag (after use) has been put under the cushion &c. Ib. 14ᵇ; 12ᵃ משל לשמש ועד וכ׳ to speak allegorically (euphemistically), the servant and the examiner stand by the side of the threshold &c. (v. שַׁמָּשׁ). Ib. זהו עֵדָן של צנועות (Ar. עֵידָן) this (special) rag is that of the chaste women; a. fr.—Pl. as ab. Ib. I, 7. Ib. II, 1; a. fr. e.g. Exodus 22:12
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 H4571 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֶמְעָֽד | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Psalms 26:1 | 1 |
| הַמְעַֽד | Verb, Hiphil, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 69:23 | 1 |
| לְ/מ֣וֹעֲדֵי | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Job 12:5 | 1 |
| מָ֝עֲד֗וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Psalms 18:36 | 1 |
| מָעֲד֖וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | 2 Samuel 22:37 | 1 |
| תִמְעַ֣ד | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Psalms 37:31 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4571, 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 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
