maal · unfaithfulness

What it means

maal (מַעַל) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “unfaithfulness”.

A breach of trust.

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. To betray the trust that God or others have placed in one.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

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

• unfaithfulness ×17
• breach of faith ×5
• unfaithful ×3
• unfaithfully ×2
• infidelity ×1

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Leviticus×3
• Numbers×4
• Joshua×5
• 1 Chronicles×2
• 2 Chronicles×3
• Ezra×3
• Job×1
• Ezekiel×6
• Daniel×1

• Leviticus 5:15

  “When a person acts unfaithfully and sins inadvertently in regard to the holy things of YHWH, he shall bring his guilt offering to YHWH, a ram without defect from the flock, by your valuation in shekels of silver, by the shekel of the sanctuary, as a guilt offering.

• Leviticus 6:2

  “When a person sins and commits unfaithfulness against YHWH by lying to his neighbor about a deposit or a pledge or a robbery, or has exploited his neighbor,

• Leviticus 26:40

  But they will confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their unfaithfulness that they committed against me, and also that they walked with me in opposition,

• Numbers 5:6

  “Speak to the sons of Israel: When a man or a woman commits any of the sins of human beings, acting unfaithfully against YHWH, and that person becomes guilty,

• Numbers 5:12

  “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him,

• Numbers 5:27

  When he has made her drink the water, then it shall be that if she has made herself unclean and been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse shall enter into her to become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh sag, and the woman shall become an imprecation among her people.

• Numbers 31:16

  Look, they were, for the sons of Israel, by the word of Balaam, the cause of committing unfaithfulness against YHWH in the matter of Peor, and the plague came on the community of YHWH.

• Joshua 7:1

  But the sons of Israel committed an act of unfaithfulness regarding the things devoted to destruction: Achan son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the things devoted to destruction, and the anger of YHWH burned against the sons of Israel.

• Joshua 22:16

  “Thus says the whole community of YHWH: ‘What is this unfaithfulness that you have committed against the Elohim of Israel, turning back today from following YHWH by building yourselves an altar, to rebel today against YHWH?

• Joshua 22:20

  Did not Achan son of Zerah commit unfaithfulness with the things devoted to destruction, and anger came upon the whole community of Israel? And he, one man, did not expire alone in his iniquity.’”

• Joshua 22:22

  “El, Elohim, YHWH! El, Elohim, YHWH! He knows, and Israel— let him know! If it was in rebellion or if in unfaithfulness against YHWH, do not save us this day.

• Joshua 22:31

  And Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the sons of Reuben, to the sons of Gad, and to the sons of Manasseh, “Today we know that YHWH is in our midst, because you have not committed this unfaithfulness against YHWH. Now you have delivered the sons of Israel from the hand of YHWH.”

• 1 Chronicles 9:1

  And all Israel was enrolled in the genealogy; and there they are, written in the book of the kings of Israel. And Judah was carried into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.

• 1 Chronicles 10:13

  So Saul died for his unfaithfulness that he committed against YHWH, because of the word of YHWH that he did not keep, and also for asking by calling up the dead, to consult,

• 2 Chronicles 28:19

  For YHWH humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had cast off restraint in Judah and had been greatly unfaithful to YHWH.

• 2 Chronicles 29:19

  And all the utensils that King Ahaz rejected during his reign in his unfaithfulness, we have prepared and sanctified; and there they are before the altar of YHWH.”

• 2 Chronicles 33:19

  His prayer and how he let himself be entreated by him, and all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the places where he built high places and set up the Asherahs and the carved images before he humbled himself, they are written in the words of Hozai.

• Ezra 9:2

  For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, and the holy offspring has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands; and the hand of the officials and the officials has been first in this unfaithfulness.”

• Ezra 9:4

  And to me gathered everyone who trembled at the words of the Elohim of Israel because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, while I sat appalled until the evening offering.

• Ezra 10:6

  And Ezra rose from before the house of Elohim and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib; and he went there; bread he did not eat, and water he did not drink, for he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.

• Job 21:34

  How, then, do you comfort me in vain, and of your answers there remains unfaithfulness?”

• Ezekiel 14:13

  “Son of man, a land, when it sins against me by committing a breach of faith, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine into it and cut off from it human being and beast,

• Ezekiel 15:8

  And I will make the land a desolation because they have committed a breach of faith, declares Adonai YHWH.”

• Ezekiel 17:20

  And I will spread my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there for his breach of faith that he committed against me.

• Ezekiel 18:24

  But when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does injustice, according to all the abominations that the wicked man has done, will he do so and live? All his righteous deeds that he has done will not be remembered; for his breach of faith that he committed and for his sin that he sinned, for them he will die.

• Ezekiel 20:27

  Therefore speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and say to them, ‘Thus says Adonai YHWH: In this also your fathers reviled me, in committing a breach of faith against me.

• Ezekiel 39:26

  And they will bear their shame and all their infidelity with which they were unfaithful to me, when they live on their own ground securely, and no one makes them afraid,

• Daniel 9:7

  To you, Adonai, belongs righteousness, but to us shame of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel, those near and those far away, in all the lands where you have driven them because of their unfaithfulness that they have committed against you.