matay · when?

What it means

matay (מָתַי) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “when?”.

How long?

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. A question demanding a time limit: how much longer will this last?

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• How long ×27
• when ×15
• long ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Genesis×1
• Exodus×3
• Numbers×1
• 1 Samuel×2
• 2 Samuel×1
• 1 Kings×1
• Nehemiah×2
• Job×1
• Psalms×13
• Proverbs×4
• Isaiah×1
• Jeremiah×7
• Daniel×2
• Hosea×1
• Amos×1
• Habakkuk×1
• Zechariah×1

• Genesis 30:30

  For you had little before me, and it has increased abundantly, and YHWH has blessed you at my coming. But now, when will I too do something for my own house?”

• Exodus 8:9

  Moses said to Pharaoh, “Have the honor over me: for when shall I pray for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and from your houses and remain only in the Nile?”

• Exodus 10:3

  So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says YHWH, the Elohim of the Hebrews: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

• Exodus 10:7

  Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve YHWH their Elohim. Do you not yet know that Egypt is ruined?”

• Numbers 14:27

  “How long shall I bear with this evil community that they grumble against me? The grumblings of the sons of Israel, which they grumble against me, I have heard.

• 1 Samuel 1:14

  And Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Put away your wine from you.”

• 1 Samuel 16:1

  YHWH said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, when I have despised him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have seen among his sons a king for myself.”

• 2 Samuel 2:26

  Abner called to Joab and said, “Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitterness in the end? And how long will you not tell the people to turn back from following their brothers?”

• 1 Kings 18:21

  Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between the two opinions? If YHWH is Elohim, go after him; and if Baal, go after him.” And the people did not answer him a word.

• Nehemiah 2:6

  And the king said to me, with the queen sitting beside him, “How long will your journey be, and when will you return?” And it seemed good before the king, and he sent me, and I gave him a set time.

• Job 7:4

  When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the evening stretches on, and I am sated with tossing until twilight.

• Psalms 6:3

  And my soul is greatly dismayed; but you, YHWH, how long?

• Psalms 41:5

  My enemies speak evil of me: “When will he die and his name perish?”

• Psalms 42:2

  My soul thirsts for Elohim, for the living El; when shall I come and appear before the face of Elohim?

• Psalms 74:10

  How long, Elohim, will the adversary reproach? Will the enemy spurn your name forever?

• Psalms 80:4

  YHWH Elohim Tsevaot, how long will you fume against the prayer of your people?

• Psalms 82:2

  “How long will you judge unjustly, and lift the face of the wicked? Selah.

• Psalms 90:13

  Return, YHWH! How long? And relent concerning your servants.

• Psalms 94:3

  How long shall the wicked, YHWH, how long shall the wicked exult?

• Psalms 94:8

  Understand, you stupid ones among the people; and you foolish ones, when will you have insight?

• Psalms 101:2

  I will give heed to the way of blamelessness; when will you come to me? I will walk in the integrity of my heart within my house.

• Psalms 119:82

  My eyes waste away for your saying, saying, “When will you comfort me?”

• Psalms 119:84

  How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who pursue me?

• Proverbs 1:22

  “How long, simple ones, will you love simpleness, and scoffers delight in scoffing for themselves, and the senseless hate knowledge?

• Proverbs 6:9

  How long, sluggard, will you lie there? When will you rise from your sleep?

• Proverbs 23:35

  “They struck me, I was not hurt; they beat me, I did not feel it. When will I wake up? I will seek it yet again.”

• Isaiah 6:11

  And I said, “How long, Adonai?” And he said, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without a human being, and the ground lies waste, a desolation;

• Jeremiah 4:14

  Wash your heart from evil, Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will your thoughts of wickedness lodge within you?

• Jeremiah 4:21

  How long must I see the banner, must I hear the sound of the horn?

• Jeremiah 12:4

  How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? Because of the evil of those who dwell in it the animals and the birds are swept away, for they say: “He will not see our end.”

• Jeremiah 13:27

  Your adulteries and your neighings, the infamy of your prostitution on the hills in the field, I have seen your detestable things. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be clean; after how long still?

• Jeremiah 23:26

  How long? Is it in the heart of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, and prophets of the deceit of their own heart,

• Jeremiah 31:22

  How long will you wander here and there, faithless daughter? For YHWH has created a new thing in the land: a woman will surround a man.”

• Jeremiah 47:5

  Baldness has come upon Gaza; Ashkelon has been silenced, the remnant of their valley. How long will you gash yourself?

• Daniel 8:13

  And I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, “Until when is the vision of the continual sacrifice and the transgression that makes desolate, to give over both the holy place and the army to be trampled?”

• Daniel 12:6

  And one said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “Until when will it be until the end of these wonders?”

• Hosea 8:5

  He has rejected your calf, Samaria; my anger burns against them; how long will they not be capable of innocence?

• Amos 8:5

  saying, “When will the new moon be over, so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may open the stores of wheat, to make small the ephah and make great the shekel, and to falsify scales of deceit,

• Habakkuk 2:6

  Will not all these take up against him a poem, and a figurative saying, riddles against him? And one will say, ‘Woe to the one who multiplies what is not his! How long? And to the one who loads upon himself pledges!’

• Zechariah 1:12

  And the angel of YHWH answered and said, “YHWH Tsevaot, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have been indignant these seventy years?”

And 3 more times.