Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
mashiach
Anointed one. In the Old Testament it usually means the reigning king.
1 Samuel 24:6, in every translation this tool compares.
The chosen one. Sounds like a title. Now use it of your line manager, accurately, and watch it become a description again.
Because Messiah is a technical term in English for one future figure, and in Hebrew it is a description applied to Saul, David, the high priest, and once to a Persian emperor.
Versions read anointed, and Messiah where the technical sense is in view.
מָשִׁיחַ mashiach · H4899
Mashiach means smeared with oil, which is how kings and priests were installed. David calls Saul the LORD's mashiach. Cyrus is called it at Isaiah 45:1. The specialised sense of a coming deliverer develops later.
English Messiah is a transliteration reserved for one figure, so the ordinary usage is invisible.
When English has both a translated and a transliterated form of one word, the transliteration usually marks where a tradition has specialised the meaning.
Anointed is the majority rendering in the Old Testament; Messiah appears where the later sense is being invoked.
- mashiach of Saul: 1 Samuel 24:6
- mashiach of Cyrus: Isaiah 45:1
- Greek christos renders it; John 1:41 glosses one with the other
