Properly, to be liquid or flow easily, i.e. (by implication); to hurry (in a good or a bad sense); often used (with another verb) adverbially, promptly
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The Hebrew verb mahar describes moving or acting quickly and can function with another verb to emphasize prompt action. Abraham hurries to prepare hospitality, people hasten away from danger, officials act on royal instructions, and prophets describe approaching judgment.
Reader summary
Full entry for מָהַר (H4116) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb mahar describes moving or acting quickly and can function with another verb to emphasize prompt action. Abraham hurries to prepare hospitality, people hasten away from danger, officials act on royal instructions, and prophets describe approaching judgment.
The BSB source-word alignment has 65 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include quickly (13), hurried (6), Hurry (5), and she quickly (3), Bring (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 18:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (13), 1 Samuel (10), Isaiah (7), Exodus (4).
The Hebrew verb mahar describes moving or acting quickly and can function with another verb to emphasize prompt action. Abraham hurries to prepare hospitality, people hasten away from danger, officials act on royal instructions, and prophets describe approaching judgment. Wisdom texts also warn against rash vows, hurried legal action, and feet that run quickly toward evil.
Speed is therefore neither automatically faithful nor automatically foolish. Urgency may serve care and rescue, but it can also magnify fear, manipulation, violence, or error. Biblical commands to hurry belong to named situations and should not become a general tool for forcing immediate decisions. Responsible teaching asks who defines the urgency, what evidence is available, who bears the risk, and whether delay would protect truth, consent, and safety.
It welcomes prompt action in genuine danger while resisting artificial deadlines in giving, marriage, employment, medical choices, disclosure, discipline, and spiritual commitments.
Mahar marks rapid movement or prompt action across hospitality, escape, deliverance, administration, sin, and wisdom warning. The purpose and consequences of haste determine whether it is prudent, necessary, rash, or harmful.
So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Prepare three seahs of fine flour, knead it, and bake some bread.”
Abraham hurries into the tent and asks Sarah to prepare bread as hospitality is offered to the visitors.
Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.” That is why the town was called Zoar.
Lot is told to hurry to Zoar because the announced judgment will not proceed until he arrives there.
Moreover, because the dream was given to Pharaoh in two versions, the matter has been decreed by God, and He will carry it out shortly.
Joseph explains that the repeated dream concerns a matter God has firmly decided and will bring about quickly.
Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.
Israel quickly forgets the Lord's works and does not wait for His counsel.
Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys
Abigail quickly gathers generous provisions as she moves to avert the violent disaster provoked by Nabal.
“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.
The Lord promises to draw near for judgment as a swift witness against exploitation and covenant unfaithfulness.
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. Metaphorically flows from physical liquidity to urgency; means both eager promptness and reckless haste.
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 4 selected witnesses from 64 lexical occurrence verses.
מָהַר 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.
Mahar teaches that time pressure must be interpreted, not merely obeyed. Abraham's haste serves generous hospitality, while Lot's urgent movement concerns escape from announced catastrophe. In Genesis 41, the speed belongs to God's bringing about a firmly established matter, not to a general rule that human pressure proves divine purpose. Abigail quickly prepares provisions amid threatened violence, and her action serves wise de-escalation rather than impulsive aggression.
Psalm 106 identifies a different kind of haste: Israel quickly forgets God's works and refuses to wait for His counsel. Malachi promises that the Lord Himself will be a swift witness against exploitation and covenant unfaithfulness; divine promptness in judgment does not authorize human shortcuts. Faithful application responds quickly when life and safety genuinely require it, but slows down when truth, consent, covenant, finance, diagnosis, or accusation requires deliberation.
Manipulators often create false scarcity or spiritual deadlines so that questions feel disobedient. Mahar provides no support for that pressure. Leaders should explain why action is urgent, what remains uncertain, what alternatives exist, and how people can obtain advice. Promptness can be loving; rashness can be destructive. Wisdom knows the difference by attending to God's counsel, the vulnerable person's safety, and the foreseeable consequences of acting before facts are known.
Ps.106.13
Mahar is a Hebrew verb for hastening or acting quickly, often in the Piel and often paired with a second verb. The paired action and narrative circumstances specify whether the speed concerns movement, preparation, speech, judgment, or decision.
New Testament exhortations can call for readiness, patience, slowness to speak, urgent rescue, and careful judgment through several Greek terms. Canonical comparison supports discerning urgency without flattening the distinct vocabulary.