Maʿyān names a spring or fountain, with literal water sources and figurative sources requiring their particular settings. Psalm 104:10 describes springs flowing through valleys and giving drink to animals in the surrounding verses.
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Full entry for מַעְיָן (H4599) · Open the biblical lexicon
Maʿyān names a spring or fountain, with literal water sources and figurative sources requiring their particular settings. Psalm 104:10 describes springs flowing through valleys and giving drink to animals in the surrounding verses.
The BSB source-word alignment has 23 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include spring (5), springs (2), the spring (2), The springs (2), a fountain (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 7:11. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (5), Proverbs (3), 2 Kings (2), Genesis (2).
Maʿyān names a spring or fountain, with literal water sources and figurative sources requiring their particular settings. Psalm 104:10 describes springs flowing through valleys and giving drink to animals in the surrounding verses. Genesis 7:11 describes fountains of the great deep bursting forth in the flood account. Water sources therefore cannot carry one automatic verdict of gentle refreshment; their role depends on the narrative or poem in which they occur.
Isaiah 12:3 portrays joyful drawing from the springs of salvation within praise for God's comfort and saving strength. Proverbs 25:26 compares a righteous person giving way to the wicked with a muddied spring or polluted well. That comparison warns about compromised conduct, but it should not be used to shame someone coerced into silence or assume that every harmed person's response is voluntary surrender. Teaching can attend to provision, disruption and the reliability of a source without making every fountain a hidden Christ symbol or promising literal endless water from a spiritual image.
Creation's drinking water, flood fountains, springs of salvation and a polluted-source comparison use the same noun for differing purposes. The specific setting determines whether a source provides, disrupts or portrays dependable or compromised conduct.
He sends forth springs in the valleys; they flow between the mountains.
Springs flow in valleys within a creation praise that describes animals drinking and birds nesting nearby. The practical provision belongs to the poem's account of sustained life.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Fountains of the great deep burst forth at the stated beginning of the flood. The narrative use cannot be flattened into the refreshing tone of a separate praise passage.
With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation,
Springs of salvation supply the image of joyful drawing within thanksgiving for comfort and divine saving strength. The metaphor should not be reduced to an ordinary water-engineering claim.
Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked.
A muddied spring or polluted well illustrates a righteous person giving way to the wicked. The warning needs actual conduct and agency before being applied to someone harmed by coercion.
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. A natural water source that metaphorically represents life-giving abundance, satisfaction, and divine provision in Hebrew thought
A natural water source that metaphorically represents life-giving abundance, satisfaction, and divine provision in Hebrew thought
a fountain (also collectively), figuratively, a source (of satisfaction) BDB: spring Usage: fountain, spring, well.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 23 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Psalm 104 places flowing springs within a sequence of creature provision, while Genesis 7 places fountains in the onset of the flood. The shared source noun does not make those roles interchangeable. Isaiah's springs of salvation belong to thanksgiving for turned-away anger, comfort and God's saving strength, so their image must be explained through that address rather than as a guarantee of physical water or every requested outcome.
The polluted spring in Proverbs gives a comparison for compromised conduct. Applying it responsibly requires evidence of the conduct and agency involved; a person under coercion must not be assumed to have freely yielded just because the proverb supplies a charged image. John 4:7-14 offers a Christian comparison in which Jesus distinguishes ordinary water from the water He gives, springing to eternal life. That stated distinction permits a meaningful comparison without turning every maʿyān into a direct Christ identification or replacing practical provision and care with an exclusively spiritual reading.
Isa.12.3
The spring noun can name a literal source or contribute to a figurative comparison. Its use for provision, flood fountains, salvation or polluted reliability does not establish one universal moral quality; modifiers, referent and discourse determine the selected explanation.
John 4:7-14 distinguishes ordinary well water and recurring thirst from the water Jesus gives, springing to eternal life. It supplies a Christian comparison for salvation-source imagery. It does not make every maʿyān a hidden designation of Jesus or remove the need to supply actual drinking water to thirsty people.