To fill or (intransitively) be full of , in a wide application (literally and figuratively)
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
H4390, mālēʾ, is a Hebrew verb whose surrounding grammar and object can describe filling something, becoming full, completing an allotted span, or carrying a word or task through to fulfillment. The word identifies an action or state whose force depends on the subject, object, stem, and named content; fullness is not a moral or spiritual verdict by itself.
Reader summary
Full entry for מָלֵא (H4390) · Open the biblical lexicon
H4390, mālēʾ, is a Hebrew verb whose surrounding grammar and object can describe filling something, becoming full, completing an allotted span, or carrying a word or task through to fulfillment. The word identifies an action or state whose force depends on the subject, object, stem, and named content; fullness is not a moral or spiritual verdict by itself.
The BSB source-word alignment has 247 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include filled (12), is full of (12), and fill (10), was filled (7), Fill (6).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (26), Exodus (23), Isaiah (22), Jeremiah (22).
H4390, mālēʾ, is a Hebrew verb whose surrounding grammar and object can describe filling something, becoming full, completing an allotted span, or carrying a word or task through to fulfillment. The word identifies an action or state whose force depends on the subject, object, stem, and named content; fullness is not a moral or spiritual verdict by itself. In Genesis, people are blessed and commissioned to fill the earth.
In Exodus, God fills Bezalel with His Spirit for skilled craftsmanship, and the Lord's glory fills the tabernacle. Solomon uses the verb when praising God for fulfilling by His hand what He promised David. Habakkuk looks beyond violent human empire to an earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory. The governed forms also caution against flattening the grammar.
Qal forms can describe a subject being or becoming full, Piel forms can present an agent filling something or fulfilling speech, and Niphal forms can present something as filled. A grammar label still does not determine the theological value. A place may be filled with God's glory, a worker may receive Spirit-enabled capacity for a named vocation, and a promise or allotted period may reach completion.
The passage must supply the agent, recipient, content, purpose, and result. These uses belong together through the idea of bringing a person, place, period, or promise to its appointed fullness, yet they are not interchangeable. Genesis's creation commission does not become reproductive pressure placed on every individual. Bezalel's gifting does not make talent proof of spiritual superiority, and the tabernacle scene does not offer a technique for manufacturing a worship atmosphere.
Material abundance is not automatically holiness, vocational gifting is not the whole doctrine of the Spirit, and fulfillment is not a blank check for private predictions. Readers should identify who fills, what receives fullness, what content is present, and what purpose the passage names.
Across creation, tabernacle service, covenant history, worship, wisdom, and prophecy, H4390 names fullness or completion whose character is determined by its subject, content, grammatical stem, and literary setting.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
God blesses humanity and commissions them to multiply and fill the earth within the larger calling to image-bearing rule under God.
And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship,
God fills Bezalel with His Spirit, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge for the concrete work of designing and building the tabernacle.
Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
The Lord's glory fills the completed tabernacle so fully that Moses cannot enter while the cloud rests upon it.
And said: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying,
Solomon praises the Lord for bringing His spoken promise to David into accomplished reality by His own faithful action.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Against cities built by bloodshed, the prophet announces an earth filled with knowledge of the Lord's glory rather than imperial violence.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. To fill means to complete, fulfill, or accomplish—moving from physical fullness to covenantal completion and consecration.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 250 lexical occurrence verses.
מָלֵא is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H4390 shows that biblical fullness is never an empty slogan. Genesis presents earth-filling as a blessed human vocation under God's rule, not as a license for domination or pressure upon every individual. Exodus 31 presents Bezalel's filling as God's provision of the Spirit, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge for a named work of service. Exodus 40 shifts from a person to sacred space as the Lord's glory fills the tabernacle and governs Israel's movement.
First Kings uses the same root for a promise brought into accomplished history, while Habakkuk opposes blood-built empire with the coming knowledge of God's glory. The verb therefore can move among spatial, vocational, temporal, and fulfillment senses because the subject and object specify the kind of fullness. Teachers should preserve those distinctions. Spirit-given craftsmanship does not make every talent an infallible revelation.
A full land or storehouse does not prove moral approval. A fulfilled word is God's faithful action in its covenant setting, not permission to attach divine certainty to personal plans. H4390 helps readers honor both the unity of God's purposes and the particular claim each passage actually makes.
Exod.31.3
The governed Hebrew evidence shows H4390 in several stems. Qal can describe being or becoming full, Piel can describe filling or fulfilling, and Niphal can describe being filled; stem and syntax guide the sense but do not determine theology alone.
The Old Testament uses H4390 for populated land, equipped persons, occupied spaces, completed periods, and fulfilled words. New Testament writers use several distinct Greek verbs and adjectives for fulfillment, Spirit filling, and states of fullness. Those later passages can form canonical connections, but they should not be collapsed into a one-to-one lexical equation with H4390.