Bible word study

Melakah (Strong’s H4399): Meaning in the Bible

Melakah (מְלָאכָה) is the Hebrew word numbered H4399 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as properly, deputyship, i.e. ministry; generally, employment (never servile) or work (abstractly or concretely); also property (as the result of labor). In the King James Bible it is translated business, cattle, industrious, occupation, ( -pied).

מְלָאכָה
mᵉlâʼkâh · Hebrew
Strong’s H4399 · mel-aw-kaw'

The full Strong’s definition

properly, deputyship, i.e. ministry; generally, employment (never servile) or work (abstractly or concretely); also property (as the result of labor)

Derivation. from the same as H4397;

How the King James Bible translates it

business, cattle, industrious, occupation, ( -pied), officer, thing (made), use, (manner of) work((-man), -manship).

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Melakah in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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