Etymologically
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משיח

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Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: māšîaḥ, construct məšîaḥ[1][2]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: mā̊ši[3]

Forms

מָשִׁיחַ (māšîaḥ) noun, masculine[2] Construct מְשִׁיחַ, with suffix מְשִׁיחִי, מְשִׁיחֶךָ, מְשִׁיחוֹ, plural with suffix מְשִׁיחָי (Psalm 105:15).[1] MACULA counts the adjective in 2 Samuel 1:21, Saul's shield bəlî māšîaḥ baššāmen “not anointed with oil”, as a lexeme of its own (Strong 4886).[2][4]

Etymology

It is formed on the verb מָשַׁח (māšaḥ, “to smear, anoint”) with the pattern of passive adjectives, “anointed”.[5][6][7] The verb has cognates in Ugaritic mšḥ (“to anoint”),[8] Aramaic מְשַׁח (məšaḥ, “to anoint”), Classical Syriac ܡܫܰܚ (mšaḥ, “to anoint”), Ge'ez መስሐ (masḥa, “to anoint”) and Arabic مَسَحَ (masaḥa, “to wipe, stroke with the hand”), and BDB thinks the original sense was that of the Arabic verb.[9][10] Akkadian mašāḫu (“to measure”) belongs to a separate root.[9][11]

The noun itself has parallels in Jewish Aramaic מְשִׁיחָא (məšîḥā),[6] Classical Syriac ܡܫܝܼܚܵܐ (mšîḥā, “Messiah”),[12] Sabaean msḥ and Arabic مَسِيح (masīḥ), which passed into Ge'ez.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Four of its uses are in the archaic poems, all of the king.[2][13] The Song of Hannah ends wəyārēm qeren məšîḥô “and he will raise the horn of his anointed” (1 Samuel 2:10), and David's psalm ends wəʿōśeh-ḥeseḏ limšîḥô ləḏāwiḏ “and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David” (2 Samuel 22:51, Psalm 18:51).[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Bible the anointed one is above all the king of Israel, Saul, David and his line, the məšîaḥ YHWH “the LORD's anointed” (1 Samuel 24:7).[5][1] In the Priestly laws hakkōhēn hammāšîaḥ “the anointed priest” is the high priest (Leviticus 4:3).[5][4] Isaiah 45:1 calls the Persian king Cyrus God's anointed, and Psalm 105:15 the patriarchs.[5] HALOT holds that the word does not yet mean an end-time saviour in the Hebrew Bible; the anointed of Daniel 9:25–26 is a priest or a ruler.[5]

The Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek χριστός (khristós) “anointed” in all but two places, and this became the Greek title Christ of the New Testament.[5] The Dead Sea Scrolls use it 66 times, six of them in CD.[14] Rabbinic Hebrew uses it of the anointed high priest and of the King Messiah, the Messiah son of David.[15] Greek Μεσσίας (Messías) (in John's Gospel) is a transcription with a secondary doubling,[4] which HALOT traces to the Aramaic form.[5] English Messiah comes from the Aramaic or the Hebrew word.[16]

Timeline

  • Archaic Hebrew poetry – qeren məšîḥô in the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:10) and limšîḥô in Psalm 18:51 = 2 Samuel 22:51.[13][2]
  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – the anointed king of 1–2 Samuel and the anointed priest of the Priestly laws (Leviticus 4:3).[2][1]
  • Late Biblical Hebrew – māšîaḥ nāḡîḏ “an anointed prince” in Daniel 9:25.[5][2]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek χριστός (khristós).[17][5]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 66 uses in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[18][14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. the anointed king of Israel: məšîaḥ YHWH “the LORD's anointed”.[5][1]
  2. the anointed high priest.[5][19]
  3. a ruler commissioned by God: Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1).[5][1]
  4. (plural) the patriarchs as God's anointed ones (Psalm 105:15).[5]
  5. (post-biblical) the Messiah.[15][5]

Word family

  • מָשַׁח (māšaḥ, “to anoint”)
  • מִשְׁחָה (mišḥâ, “anointing”)

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew משיח (mashíakh)[6]
  • English Messiah[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. מָשִׁיחַ
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  4. ^ a b c Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. מָשִׁיחַ
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. מָשִׁיחַ
  6. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. מָשִֽׁיחַ
  8. ^ del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. /m-š-ḥ/
  9. ^ a b Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. מָשַׁח
  10. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 2713
  11. ^ Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. משׁח
  12. ^ Sokoloff, Michael (2009), A Syriac Lexicon, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns; Piscataway: Gorgias Press, p. 845
  13. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
  14. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
  15. ^ a b Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. מָשִׁיחַ
  16. ^ a b Huehnergard, John (2011), "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture" and "Semitic Roots", in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. s.v. mšḥ
  17. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  18. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  19. ^ de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. מָשִׁיחַ