מְצוּרָה
rampart
also: siege-works, stronghold 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
- 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.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 6 times (75%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (25%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4694 appears — 8 distinct verses across 3 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.
2 Chronicles 6 verses
- 2 Chronicles 11:10 מְצֻרֽוֹת n c fp and Zorah, and Aijalon, and Hebron, which are in Judah and in Benjamin, fortified cities.
- 2 Chronicles 11:11 הַ/מְּצֻר֑וֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp He fortified the strongholds, and put captains in them, and stores of food, and oil and wine.
- 2 Chronicles 11:23 הַ/מְּצֻר֔וֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp He dealt wisely, and dispersed of all his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, to every fortified city: and he gave them food in abundance. He sought [for them] many wives.
- 2 Chronicles 12:4 הַ/מְּצֻר֖וֹת ptcl def.art + n c fp He took the fortified cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 14:6 מְצוּרָ֖ה n c fs He built fortified cities in Judah; for the land was quiet, and he had no war in those years, because Yahweh had given him rest.
- 2 Chronicles 21:3 מְצֻר֖וֹת n c fp Their father gave them great gifts, of silver, and of gold, and of precious things, with fortified cities in Judah: but the kingdom gave he to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn.
Isaiah 1 verse
Nahum 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.
The Hebrew noun מצורה centers on the idea of “rampart.” 2 Chronicles dominates its distribution — 6 of 8 verses. Spanning 8 verses in 3 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its earliest occurrence is 2 Chronicles 11:10. Beyond “rampart” it also covers “siege-works” and “stronghold” — see its full sense range. 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 H4694 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 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 8 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Chronicles 6 verses 75%
- Isaiah 1 verse 13%
- Nahum 1 verse 13%
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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 75%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 25%
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: Fenced 4×
- American Standard Version: Fortified 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Fortified 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Fortified 5×, Fortifications 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4694 across 8 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 H4694 across 8 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4694 across 8 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4694 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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. siege-works Is 29:3. e.g. Isaiah 29:3
- 2. rampart נָצוֹר מ׳ Na 2:2 guard the rampart! (‖ צַפֵּה דֶרֶךְ; We Now der. from נצר, i.e. keep watch!), 2 Ch 11:11, עָרֵי מְצוּרָה 14:5 fortified cities, so עָרֵי (הַ)מְצֻרוֹת 11:10, 23; 12:4; 21:3. e.g. Nahum 2:2
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. siege-works, rampart;—abs. מ׳ Na 2:2 2 Ch 14:5; pl. מְצוּרוֹת 2 Ch 11:11 +, מְצֻרֹת Is 29:3, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מצור (mâtsôwr) (H4692) — siege.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms H4694 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/מְּצֻר֑וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 11:11 | 1 |
| הַ/מְּצֻר֔וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 11:23 | 1 |
| הַ/מְּצֻר֖וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 12:4 | 1 |
| מְצֻר֖וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 21:3 | 1 |
| מְצֻרָ֑ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Nahum 2:1 | 1 |
| מְצֻרֹֽת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Isaiah 29:3 | 1 |
| מְצֻרֽוֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 11:10 | 1 |
| מְצוּרָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Chronicles 14:6 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4694, 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 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
