Properly, a standing , i.e. a spot ; but used widely of a locality (general or specific); also (figuratively) of a condition (of body or mind)
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מָקוֹם (maqom) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for a place, location, site, or position. It can name where waters gather, where a person stands, where an event occurs, where someone lives, or where an object belongs.
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Full entry for מָקוֹם (H4725) · Open the biblical lexicon
מָקוֹם (maqom) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for a place, location, site, or position. It can name where waters gather, where a person stands, where an event occurs, where someone lives, or where an object belongs.
The BSB source-word alignment has 401 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include place (124), the place (58), in the place (18), a place (16), . . . (14).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:9. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (47), Jeremiah (46), Deuteronomy (33), 1 Samuel (24).
מָקוֹם (maqom) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for a place, location, site, or position. It can name where waters gather, where a person stands, where an event occurs, where someone lives, or where an object belongs. Its basic sense is spatial; holiness or theological significance comes from the person, act, promise, or divine choice associated with a particular place.
Genesis 28:16 records Jacob's awakening confession that the Lord is in this place, and Exodus 3:5 calls the place where Moses stands holy ground. Neither text teaches that physical ground is independently divine. The place is significant because God reveals himself and addresses the person there. Genesis 22:14 likewise names the site in response to the Lord's provision within that narrative.
Deuteronomy repeatedly speaks of the place the Lord will choose for his name, and the temple prayer in 1 Kings 8 directs prayer toward that place while also confessing that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God. Biblical place theology can therefore hold chosen covenant location and divine transcendence together. Later Jewish use of HaMaqom, the Place, as a reverent divine designation should be identified as later reception rather than projected into every H4725 verse.
Maqom ranges from ordinary geography to sites marked by revelation, provision, worship, judgment, or dwelling. The noun does not make a location sacred by itself; the narrative or covenant identifies why that place matters.
The waters are gathered to one place as dry land appears, an ordinary spatial use in creation.
Jacob recognizes the Lord's presence in the place after the dream at Bethel.
Moses must remove his sandals because the place where he stands is holy ground in the divine encounter.
Israel is commanded to seek the place the Lord will choose to set his name and make his dwelling.
Solomon asks that God's eyes be open toward the temple, the place associated with God's name, within a prayer that denies God can be contained by it.
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. Physical location extends figuratively to internal condition; versatile spatial term encompassing place, room, and circumstance.
Physical location extends figuratively to internal condition; versatile spatial term encompassing place, room, and circumstance.
properly, a standing, i.e. a spot; but used widely of a locality (general or specific); also (figuratively) of a condition (of body or mind) BDB: standing-place Usage: country, × home, × open, place, room, space, × whither(-soever).
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 4 selected witnesses from 401 lexical occurrence verses.
מָקוֹם is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Maqom helps a congregation think about place without sliding into either superstition or abstraction. Scripture is full of concrete locations where people work, flee, worship, fail, remember, and encounter God's word. Bethel matters because God addresses Jacob there; the bush's ground is holy because God is present and speaking; Deuteronomy's chosen place matters because the Lord appoints it for covenant worship.
At the same time, Solomon confesses that even the highest heaven cannot contain God. A sermon can therefore honor buildings, gathered worship, geographic memory, and embodied obedience while refusing to treat sacred space as a mechanism that controls divine presence. The word also encourages careful attention to setting: where an event happens often shapes the narrative, but the ordinary noun place does not secretly carry every later theology attached to famous locations.
Gen.28.16
Maqom is a general spatial noun. Definite forms such as the place gain specificity from discourse context; they do not automatically function as a divine title in biblical Hebrew.
New Testament temple and worship passages can be read as thematic developments of biblical place theology. Their claims must be established from those texts rather than from an assumed hidden sense of H4725.
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