A burden ; specifically, tribute , or (abstractly) porterage ; figuratively, an utterance , chiefly a doom , especially singing ; mental, desire
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H4853 is a Hebrew noun for a load, burden, carrying duty, tribute, or weighty prophetic utterance. Exodus 23:5 commands a person who sees an enemy's donkey collapsed under its load to help with it, joining burden-bearing to practical mercy across hostility.
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Full entry for מַשָּׂא (H4853) · Open the biblical lexicon
H4853 is a Hebrew noun for a load, burden, carrying duty, tribute, or weighty prophetic utterance. Exodus 23:5 commands a person who sees an enemy's donkey collapsed under its load to help with it, joining burden-bearing to practical mercy across hostility.
The BSB source-word alignment has 66 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [This is] the burden (14), the burden (6), burden (5), This is the burden (4), a load (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 23:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (14), Jeremiah (12), Numbers (11), 2 Chronicles (4).
H4853 is a Hebrew noun for a load, burden, carrying duty, tribute, or weighty prophetic utterance. Exodus 23:5 commands a person who sees an enemy's donkey collapsed under its load to help with it, joining burden-bearing to practical mercy across hostility. Deuteronomy 1:12 records Moses asking how he can bear the people's troubles, burdens, and disputes alone, which leads toward shared leadership.
Isaiah 13:1 introduces a burden or oracle against Babylon, using the noun for a weighty prophetic pronouncement. Other texts describe cargo, assigned transport, taxation, oppressive demands, guilt too heavy to bear, and people fearing they are a burden. H4853 opens material labor, leadership capacity, prophetic judgment, emotional weight, and human dignity. It corrects spiritual language that romanticizes overload or calls every intense message a prophetic burden from God.
H4853 names something carried: a physical load, transport responsibility, tribute, social burden, or prophetic utterance. The carrier, source, object, and genre distinguish ordinary labor, oppressive weight, shared responsibility, and oracle language.
If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.
Covenant law requires practical help when an enemy's donkey has fallen under its load, refusing indifference across hostility.
But how can I bear your troubles, burdens, and disputes all by myself?
Moses names his inability to carry Israel's troubles, burdens, and disputes alone, supporting distributed responsibility.
This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received:
Isaiah introduces a weighty prophetic burden against Babylon, an imperial power placed under divine judgment.
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. Literal weight becomes prophetic weight: burden evolves from physical load to oracular utterance or doom-laden proclamation.
Literal weight becomes prophetic weight: burden evolves from physical load to oracular utterance or doom-laden proclamation.
a burden; specifically, tribute, or (abstractly) porterage; figuratively, an utterance, chiefly a doom, especially singing; mental, desire BDB: load Usage: burden, carry away, prophecy, × they set, song, tribute.
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 1 selected witness from 65 lexical occurrence verses.
מַשָּׂא is built from this root:
The term signals the seriousness and divine origin of the message.Isaiah 13:1-8
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H4853 keeps burden language concrete. A collapsed animal needs immediate help even when its owner is an enemy. Moses' admission of limited capacity is not faithlessness; shared judgment becomes necessary for the community's good. Prophetic burden language carries divine seriousness, especially against violent power, but it does not make exhaustion a credential or a private impression infallible.
Congregations can honor vocation while setting workload, rest, compensation, supervision, and succession realistically. Caregivers need respite, workers need safe limits, and leaders need permission to say that responsibility exceeds one person's capacity. People receiving care retain dignity and should never be reduced to the weight others feel. When guilt is the burden, confession and repair matter; when oppression creates the load, structures must change.
A claimed prophetic burden should be tested by Scripture, truth, community discernment, and fruit. Faithful burden-bearing shares appropriate weight without taking control of another person's agency or hiding preventable exploitation.
Exod.23.5
H4853 is a noun formed around lifting or carrying and ranges from a literal load to tribute, transport duty, and a prophetic utterance often translated oracle or burden. Genre and surrounding verbs prevent these senses from being collapsed.
Jesus welcomes the weary and contrasts His yoke with crushing religious loads. The apostles command reciprocal burden-bearing while retaining personal responsibility, and they organize shared service rather than requiring one leader to carry every need.