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מַשְׁקֶה

drink

‘drink’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

H4945 Strong's Hebrew
mashqeh Transliteration
/mash-keh'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 19 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

משקה (mashqeh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “drink.” It clusters heavily in Genesis, which alone accounts for 56% of its uses. With 18 verses in 7 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 13:10. Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
butler
Modern gloss
drink
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H4945 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 →

18
distinct verses
The word appears in 18 distinct verses.
7 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 13:10
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 13:10.
Ezekiel 45:15
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Ezekiel 45:15.
#1,563
by frequency
Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,563 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 18 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 11 · 61%
  • Historical 5 · 28%
  • Wisdom 0 · 0%
  • Prophets 2 · 11%

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 18 distinct verses.

  • Torah (Pentateuch) 11 verses · 61%
  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 22%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 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: All drink 1×, All the drinking 1×, Butlership 1×
  • American Standard Version: 's drinking 2×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Cupbearer 10×, Cupbearers 2×, Drinking 2×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Cupbearers 8×, Cupbearer 2×, Drink 2×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H4945 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “All drink” 1×
  • “All the drinking” 1×
  • “Butlership” 1×
  • “Drinking” 1×
  • “Fat pastures” 1×
  • “He will cause the drink” 1×
  • “Was well watered” 1×

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H4945 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “'s drinking” 2×

Plus 5 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 H4945 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Cupbearer” 10×
  • “Cupbearers” 2×
  • “Drinking” 2×

Plus 4 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 H4945 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Cupbearers” 8×
  • “Cupbearer” 2×
  • “Drink” 2×
  • “Drink of” 2×

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 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.

משקה I butler, cup-bearer (proposes Pt. Hiph. = one giving drink)

משקה II

  • 1. irrigation Gn 13:10 (J; abstr. for concrete, =) well-irrigated, of land; Ez 45:15 (מִשְׁפְּחוֹת; Gr מִקְנֵה). e.g. Genesis 13:10
  • 2. drink Is 32:6; Lv 11:34; כְּלֵי מ׳ drinking-vessels 1 K 10:21 = 2 Ch 9:20. e.g. Isaiah 32:6
  • 3. = office of butler, butlership Gn 40:21 (E). e.g. Genesis 40:21

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

II. n.m. butler, cup-bearer (proposes Pt. Hiph. = one giving drink);—abs. מ׳ Gn 40:5 (E), Ne 1:11, cstr. מַשְׁקֵה Gn 40:1, sf. מַשְׁקֵ֫הוּ v 13, pl. מַשְׁקִים v 2, 9, 20, 21, 23; 41:9 (all E); sf. מַשְׁקָיו 1 K 10:5 = 2 Ch 9:4 (> ii. מ׳).

III. n.m. Lv 11:34 irrigation, drink;—abs. מ׳ Gn 13:10 Lv 11:34, cstr. מַשְׁקֵה 1 K 10:21 + 3 times; sf. מַשְׁקֵ֫הוּ Gn 40:21;—

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from שקה (shâqâh) (H8248) — to water.

Part of speech: Noun Masculine TWOT: 2452c


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.

מַשְׁקֶה

  • drink, liquid. Sifra Sh’mini ch. IX, Par. 8 מ׳ זה היין ‘drink’ (Lev. XI, 34) means wine. Ib. מ׳ סרוח spoiled liquid; Pes. 18ᵃ; a. fr.—Pl. מַשְׁקִים, מַשְׁקִין. Ib. 17ᵇ מ׳ הבאין מחמת ידים liquids which have become unclean through contact with unclean hands. Ib. שנטמאו מחמת מ׳ vessels which have become unclean through the liquids put into them; a. fr.—מַשְׁקֵי בית מטבחיא, v. מַטְבָּחַיָּיא a. מַדְבָּחַיָּיא. e.g. Leviticus 11:34

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 16 distinct written forms H4945 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/מַּשְׁקִ֔ים Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Genesis 40:2 2
הַ/מַּשְׁקִ֛ים Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Genesis 40:9 2
מַשְׁקֵ֨ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 Kings 10:21 2
הַ/מַּשְׁקִ֖ים Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Genesis 40:21 1
הַ/מַּשְׁקִ֗ים Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute Genesis 40:20 1
הַ/מַּשְׁקֶ֣ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 40:5 1
וּ/מַשְׁקֶ֥ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 32:6 1
וּ/מַשְׁקָ֔י/ו Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 Kings 10:5 1
וּ/מַשְׁקָי/ו֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 2 Chronicles 9:4 1
מִ/מַּשְׁקֵ֣ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Ezekiel 45:15 1
מַשְׁקֵ֑/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Genesis 40:21 1
מַשְׁקֵ֥ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Genesis 40:1 1
מַשְׁקֵֽ/הוּ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Genesis 40:13 1
מַשְׁקֶ֑ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Genesis 13:10 1
מַשְׁקֶ֖ה Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Nehemiah 1:11 1
מַשְׁקֶה֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 11:34 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4945, 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

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 17 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 18 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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