מָוֶת

מָוֶת (māwet) is the Hebrew noun for death. Depending on context, it can name the event or state of death, mortal danger, a death-dealing condition, or death portrayed as a power. It is closely related to H4191 מוּת, the verb for dying, but the two Strong's identities must not be merged. Genesis 2:17 uses the H4191 verb, not H4194.

Deuteronomy 30:15 places life and good opposite death and evil within Moses' covenant appeal. Proverbs 14:12 warns that a way which appears right can end in ways of death. These passages make death part of a moral and covenant contrast, but H4194 does not mean spiritual separation in every occurrence and does not prove that each individual death results from one identifiable personal sin.

Psalm 116:15 says that the death of the Lord's faithful ones is precious or costly in his sight. In a psalm of deliverance from mortal danger, the statement underscores the weight of their deaths before the Lord. It should not be used to claim that God prefers early death, that grief is misplaced, or that the verse removes death's painful character.

Isaiah 25:8 promises that the Lord will swallow up death forever. Paul explicitly cites that promise in 1 Corinthians 15:54. Hosea 13:14 also addresses death and Sheol, but the Hebrew questions can be read as summoning their plagues in judgment rather than simply taunting defeated enemies. Paul's use in 1 Corinthians 15:55 gives the lines a resurrection-victory role in his argument without erasing the difficulty of Hosea's immediate context.

The death noun appears in legal, poetic, wisdom, narrative, and prophetic contexts. It can name ordinary mortality, violent death, deadly peril, a threatened outcome, or death treated rhetorically as a power. Each occurrence must be read within its own syntax and genre.

Deuteronomy and Proverbs use death as the opposite destination to life and wisdom. The Psalms can lament its nearness, seek deliverance, or confess that the deaths of the faithful matter deeply to the Lord. Song of Songs uses death as a measure of love's strength without turning the comparison into a resurrection oracle.

Isaiah 25 makes the decisive prophetic promise that the Lord will swallow death forever. Hosea 13 supplies lines that Paul later adapts into the resurrection taunt of 1 Corinthians 15. The later apostolic use is explicit and central, but careful teaching should acknowledge Hosea's judgment context and contested Hebrew force.