מָעוֹן
Maon
BDB lists 4 entries for ‘Maon’ fuller range ↓
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
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H4584 appears — 6 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.
Joshua 1 verse
Judges 1 verse
1 Samuel 3 verses
- 1 Samuel 23:24 מָעוֹן֙ n Proper They arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert.
- 1 Samuel 23:25 מָע֑וֹן מָעֽוֹן n Proper n Proper Saul and his men went to seek him. They told David: why he came down to the rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard [that], he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon.
- 1 Samuel 25:2 בְּ/מָע֜וֹן prep + n Proper There was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
1 Chronicles 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.
מעון — transliterated Mâʻôwn — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Maon.” Its uses cluster heavily in 1 Samuel (50% of all occurrences). With 6 verses in 4 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Debuting at Joshua 15:55, it then recurs through the corpus. See 6-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4584 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.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 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.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 83%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 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).
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†: Maon 6×
- American Standard Version†: Maon 6×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Maon 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Maon 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4584 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4584 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4584 across 7† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H4584 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
8 senses and sub-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 8 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.
מעון I [m.] refuge, hence habitation
- 1. lair of jackals Je 9:10; 10:22; 49:33; 51:37 (all of desolated cities); מ׳ אֲרָיוֹת Na 2:12 (‖ מִרְעֶה; fig. of Nineveh). e.g. Jeremiah 9:10
- 2. dwelling of י׳:
- a. in heaven מ׳ קָדְשְׁךָ Dt 26:15 cf. Je 25:30 (‖ מָרוֹם), Zc 2:17 ψ 68:6; 2 Ch 30:27. e.g. Deuteronomy 26:15
- b. in temple מ׳ בֵּיתֶ֑ךָ ψ 26:8, מְעוֹנוֹ 2 Ch 36:15 (only here alone). e.g. Psalms 26:8
- 3. fig. of י׳ as refuge of his people, צוּר מ׳ ψ 71:3, מ׳ alone 90:1; 91:9.—מ׳ 1 S 2:29, 32 is unintelling. (v. Comm.), poss. read מְעוֹיֵן (eyeing [enviously], v. עין denom.) Klo HPS, cf. 𝔊 Bu. מְעוֹנָהּ Zp 3:7 is difficult in context, 𝔊 We Now read מֵעֵינֶיה (cf. Jos 9:23; 2 S 3:29). e.g. Psalms 71:3
מעון II
- 1. loc. in Judah Jos 15:55 (P), 1 S 25:2 (𝔊 Μααν, Μαων), now Maʿîn (BuhlGeogr. 163 and reff.), 8 miles S. of Hebron; hence מִדְבַּר מ׳ 23:24, 25(×2), so read also 25:1 (for MT פארן) 𝔊 Th We Dr Bu Klo Kit Löhr; cf. e.g. Joshua 15:55
- 2. m. in Judah 1 Ch 2:45(×2), 𝔊 Μεων, Μαων. e.g. 1 Chronicles 2:45
- 3. gent. Ju 10:12 named with Sidonians and Amalek as ancient foes of Isr.; poss. intended by writer as = מְעוּנִים q.v. p. 589 supr.; many read מִדְיָן (𝔊Biblical Aramaic 𝔊L Μαδιαμ); v. GFM.—מְעוֹן v. בֵּית בַּעַל מְעוֹן p. 111 supr.; 1 Ch 4:41 v. מְעוּנִים p. 589. e.g. Judges 10:12
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
n.[m.] refuge, hence habitation;—abs. מ׳ ψ 71:3 +, cstr. מְעוֹן Je 25:30 +, sf. מְעוֹנֶ֑ךָ ψ 91:9, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מעון (mâʻôwn) (H4583) — dwelling.
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.
מָעוֹן I
- 1. [selection; cmp. בִּירָה,] residence, esp. the Temple; המ׳ by the Temple! Tosef. Keth. III, 2. Tosef. Ker. IV, 4. Num. R. s. 12 שמת מְעוֹנְךָ בעליונים thou hast placed thy residence with the uppermost(angels). Koh. R. to XII, 7 מעוני טהור my residence (in heaven) is pure; a. e.
- 2. Maʿon, name of one of the heavens. Ḥag. 12ᵇ
- 3. [that which is looked for,] sustenance, support (v. I Sam. II, 29; 32). Gen. R. s. 68, a. e. הקב"ה מְעוֹנוֹ של עולמו the Lord is the support of his world; cmp. מָקוֹם.—[Ex. R. s. 24 מעון בתוך גרגרתו, some ed., read: מַעֲיָן.] e.g. 1 Samuel 2:29
מָעוֹן II
- 1. (b. h.) Maon, in Judaea. Mekh. Yithro, Baḥod. s. l. מ׳ יהודה.
- 2. מ׳, also בֵּית מ׳ Maon, Beth Maon, near Tiberias. Sabb. 139ᵃ bot. בי כנישתא דמ׳ the synagogue of M.; (Gen. R. s. 80, beg. בכנישתהון דמעונא, read דמְעוֹנָאֵי; Y. Snh. II, end, 20ᵈ בכ׳ בטיבריא). Y. Erub. V, 22ᵇ bot. בית מ׳; Y. Sot. I, 17ᵃ bot. בית מעיין (corr. acc.); Num. R. s. 9 (ed. Wil. p. 58).—[Tosef. Shebi. VII, 13 מעון אנא Var., ed. Zuck. שמעון; oth. ed. מען.]
עָוֹן
- 1. perversion, wrong. Deut. R. s. 3 לא חטא ולא ע׳ no sin or wrong. Sabb. 30ᵃ אותו ע׳ that sin (of David’s, against Uriah and Bathsheba); Snh. 107ᵃ מחול לי על אותו ע׳ כולו pardon me for that sin entirely. Sabb. 88ᵇ עֲוֹן גדי, v. כָּרַם. Snh. 44ᵇ אם יש בי ע׳ זה if I am guilty of that crime (for which I am to be put to death); a. fr.—ע׳ גליון, v. אָוֶן.—Pl. עֲוֹנוֹת, עֲווֹנוֹת. Ib. תהא … עֲווֹנוֹתַיי may my death be an atonement for all my wrong-doings. Ber. 5ᵇ מוחלין לו כל עֲוֹנוֹתָיו is forgiven all his sins. Yoma III, 8. Ib. 39ᵇ עְווֹנוֹתֵיהֶן של ישראל the sins of Israel; a. v. fr.
- 2. (sub. עוֹנֶשׁ) penalty. Yeb. 47ᵃ מודיעין אותו עֲוֹן לקט וכ׳ we acquaint him (the proselyte) with the consequences of a neglect of the laws concerning the share of the poor &c., v. עוֹנֶשׁ.—בַּעֲ׳ as a punishment for, in consequence of. Sabb. 32ᵇ בע׳ נדרים (sub. ביטול) as a punishment for the neglect of vows; בע׳ מזוזה for neglecting the law concerning the door-post inscription; בע׳ ביטול תורה for neglecting the study of the Law; בע׳ גילוי עריות for unchastity; a. fr.
עוּן
- to be round, curved; denom. עַיִן.
- (denom. of עַיִן)
- 1. to look in, read. Tanḥ. Ki Thissa 34 אסור … לעַיֵּין בתורה וכ׳ the interpreter must not look into the Torah (Hebrew text) and translate; (Pesik. R. s. 5 ליתן עיניו).
- 2. to look carefully; to search, investigate (cmp. דּוּק a. דִּקְדֵּק). B. Bath. 115ᵃ (ref. ובן אין לו, Num. XXVII, 8) עַיֵּין עליו (Ar. אַיֵּין) investigate his case (whether he has really no male issue); Yeb. 22ᵇ. Kidd. 4ᵃ (ref. to Lev. XXII, 13 וזרע אין לה) עיין לה; Yeb. 70ᵃ עיין עלה (Chald.). e.g. Numbers 27:8
- 3. to speculate, contemplate. Ber. 55ᵃ המאריך בתפלתו ומְעַיֵּין בה he who stays long in prayer and speculates on it (expecting its fulfillment as a reward for his lengthy prayer); Yalk. Prov. 950; Ber. 32ᵇ; a. e.
- 4. [to measure with the eye] to balance exactly, opp. הכריע (v. כָּרַע). B. Bath. 89ᵃ אין מְעַיְּינִין … במקום שמעיינין where it is customary to give overweight, you dare not sell by exact weight, and vice versa; a. e.—Part. pass. מְעוּיָּין a) (adv.) weighed exactly, even-balanced. Num. R. s. 16, end (ref. to עין בעין, Num. XIV, 14) הרי מאזנים מע׳ אתה וכ׳ behold the scales are evenly balanced, thou sayest …, and I say &c.; Deut. R. s. 5 הרי מדת הדין בכף מאזנים מע׳ judgment lies on evenly balanced scales. Tanḥ. Ki Thissa 34; Pesik. R. s. 5, beg. המאזניים מע׳ the claims on both sides are equal. Y. Snh. X, beg. 27ᶜ היה מע׳ if it (his sins and his merits) be even; Y. Peah I, 16ᵇ bot.; Y. Kidd. I, end, 61ᵈ מחציין (corr. acc.); Yalk. Ps. 784 כף מאזניים מע׳ [היה]; a. e.—b) having eyes (rings) or colors. Y. Kil. I, 27ᵃ, v. לְעוּנִים. e.g. Numbers 14:14
- (b. h.) [to contemplate; to augur;] to produce apparitions, to conjure. Snh. 65ᵇ, a. e. (interpret. מעונן, Deut. XVIII, 10) המעביר … על העין, v. זְכוּרוּ. Ib. (oth. interpret.) האוהז את העינים, v. אָחַז. Ib. (oth. interpret.; cmp. Pi.) המחשב עתים ושעות וכ׳ who calculates what times and hours are auspicious &c.; [Comment. on המחשב עתים explain עונן as denomin. of עוֹנָה I]; Tosef. Sabb. VII (VIII), 14 נותני עתים וכ׳. e.g. Deuteronomy 18:10
עוּן ²
- Pa. עֵיֵּין, עַיֵּן same,
- 1. to watch, guard. Targ. Y. II, Deut. XXXII, 10 עַיְּינֵי (Paeli).—B. Kam. 32ᵇ איבעי ליה עַיּוּנֵי (עַיּוּנֵיה) he ought to have been on his guard; Macc. 8ᵃ לעַיּיוּנֵיה.
- 2. to look out for, select. Targ. Job VIII, 17 יְעַיֵּין ed. Lag. (oth. ed. יְעוֹיִן).
- 3. to look into, meditate, study, speculate. M. Kat. 14ᵇ לעיוני בדיניה to study his case (not to decide it). Ib. אתו מצפרא ומְעַיְּינֵי בדיניה וכ׳ they meet in the morning and consider his case …, and then they come again at sunset &c. Ber. 25ᵃ עַיֵּין אי וכ׳ examine and see whether &c. Ib. 58ᵃ עד דמעייני ביה בדינא while they were arguing about him in court. Snh. 18ᵇ ומְעַיְּינִינָא וכ׳ and we argue on his case. Meg. 30ᵇ מְעַיְּינִינָן במילי דמתא we look into the affairs (the moral condition) of the town. Gitt. 60ᵃ; Tem. 14ᵇ מְעַיְּינֵי בספרא וכ׳ used to study the book of &c. R. Hash. 16ᵃ בחינה עיוני בעלמא היא ‘to probe’ (בחן) means merely to investigate (without decreeing). Ber. 55ᵃ דמְעַיּין בה when he thinks of his prayer (expecting its fulfilment), v. preced; a. fr.—[Pol. עוֹנֵן, v. עֲנַן.]
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 7 distinct written forms H4584 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| מָע֑וֹן | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:45 | 2 |
| בְּ/מָע֜וֹן | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 25:2 | 1 |
| וּ/מָע֔וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 10:12 | 1 |
| וּ/מָע֖וֹן | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:45 | 1 |
| מָע֥וֹן | Noun, Proper | Joshua 15:55 | 1 |
| מָעֽוֹן | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 23:25 | 1 |
| מָעוֹן֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 23:24 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4584, 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
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.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Maon). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Habitation, a town in the tribe of Judah, about 7 miles south of Hebron, which gave its name to the wilderness, the district round the conical hill on which the town stood. Here David hid from Saul, and here Nabal had his possessions and his home (1 Sam. 23:24, 25; 25:2). "Only some small foundations of hewn stone, a square enclosure, and several cisterns are now to be seen at Maon. Are they the remains of Nabal's great establishment?" The hill is now called Tell M'ain.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(habitation), one of the cities of the tribe of Judah, in the district of the mountains. (Joshua 15:55) Its interest for us lies in its connection with David. (1 Samuel 23:24,25) The name of Maon still exists in Main, a lofty conical hill, south of and about seven miles distant from Hebron.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
house; place of sin
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 6 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.
