maoz · stronghold, refuge

What it means

maoz (מָעוֹז) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “stronghold, refuge”.

Stronghold: a protected place where one defends himself; fortress. Figuratively, refuge (Psalm 27:1).

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 strong place where someone defends himself or takes refuge.
2. YHWH, the safe place of his people.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

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

• stronghold ×32
• strongholds ×3
• against the strongest ×1

Where it appears

• Judges×1
• 2 Samuel×1
• Nehemiah×1
• Psalms×9
• Proverbs×1
• Isaiah×10
• Jeremiah×1
• Ezekiel×2
• Daniel×7
• Joel×1
• Nahum×2

• Judges 6:26

  Then build an altar to YHWH your Elohim on the top of this stronghold, in the proper order; and take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you cut down.”

• 2 Samuel 22:33

  The El is my strong stronghold, and he sets free my way blameless.

• Nehemiah 8:10

  And he said to them, “Go, eat rich fatty foods and drink sweet drinks, and send portions to the one for whom nothing is prepared, for holy is the day to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of YHWH is your stronghold.”

• Psalms 27:1

  Of David. YHWH is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? YHWH is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be in dread?

• Psalms 28:8

  YHWH is strength for them, and the stronghold of the salvations of his anointed is he.

• Psalms 31:2

  Turn your ear to me; quickly deliver me; be for me a rock that is a stronghold, a house of fortresses to save me.

• Psalms 31:4

  You will bring me out of the net that they have hidden for me, for you are my stronghold.

• Psalms 37:39

  And the salvation of the righteous is from YHWH, their stronghold in the time of distress.

• Psalms 43:2

  For you are the Elohim of my stronghold; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about in mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

• Psalms 52:7

  “Look at the man who would not make Elohim his stronghold, and trusted in the abundance of his riches; he grew strong in his calamity.”

• Psalms 60:7

  Mine is Gilead, and mine is Manasseh; and Ephraim is the stronghold of my head; Judah is my staff of command.

• Psalms 108:8

  Mine is Gilead, mine is Manasseh; and Ephraim is the stronghold of my head; Judah is my staff of command.

• Proverbs 10:29

  A stronghold for integrity is the way of YHWH, but ruin for those who do wickedness.

• Isaiah 17:9

  On that day the cities of his stronghold will be like the abandoned places of the woodland and of the hilltop which they abandoned from before the sons of Israel; and there will be desolation.

• Isaiah 17:10

  For you have forgotten the Elohim of your salvation, and the Rock of your stronghold you have not remembered; therefore you plant pleasant plantings and with a cutting of a stranger you sow it;

• Isaiah 23:4

  Be ashamed, Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have not been in labor nor given birth, nor have I raised young men nor brought up virgins.”

• Isaiah 23:11

  His hand he has stretched out over the sea; he has shaken kingdoms; YHWH has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.

• Isaiah 23:14

  Wail, ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is devastated.

• Isaiah 25:4

  For you have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the downpour, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the tyrants is like a downpour against a wall.

• Isaiah 27:5

  Or let him take hold of my stronghold, let him make peace with me; peace let him make with me.”

• Isaiah 30:2

  who set out to go down to Egypt, and have not asked my mouth, to take refuge in the stronghold of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.

• Isaiah 30:3

  And the stronghold of Pharaoh will become for you a shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt a humiliation.

• Jeremiah 16:19

  YHWH, my strength and my stronghold and my place to flee in the day of distress, to you nations will come from the ends of the earth and say: “Surely our fathers inherited falsehood, vapor, and there is no profit in them.”

• Ezekiel 24:25

  And you, son of man, will it not be on the day when I take from them their stronghold, the joy of their beauty, the delight of their eyes, and the longing of their soul, their sons and their daughters,

• Ezekiel 30:15

  And I will pour out my fury on Sin, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will cut off the multitude of Thebes.

• Daniel 11:1

  And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to be a support and a stronghold for him.

• Daniel 11:7

  But one from a shoot of her roots will stand up in his place, and he will come against the army and enter the stronghold of the king of the north, and act against them and prevail.

• Daniel 11:10

  And his sons will wage war and gather a multitude of great forces, and one will come surely and overflow and pass through, and return and wage war up to his stronghold.

• Daniel 11:19

  And he will turn his face to the strongholds of his own land, and he will stumble and fall and not be found.

• Daniel 11:31

  And forces from him will stand up and profane the sanctuary, the stronghold, and take away the continual sacrifice, and set up the detestable thing that makes desolate.

• Daniel 11:38

  But the god of strongholds he will honor in his place; and a god that his fathers did not know he will honor with gold and with silver and with precious stones and with desirable things.

• Daniel 11:39

  And he will act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god; those who acknowledge him he will greatly increase in honor, and he will make them rule over many, and the land he will divide for a price.

• Joel 3:16

  And YHWH roars from Zion, and from Jerusalem utters his voice, and the heavens and the earth shake; but YHWH is a refuge for his people, and a stronghold for the children of Israel.

• Nahum 1:7

  Good is YHWH, a stronghold in the day of distress; and he knows those who take refuge in him.

• Nahum 3:11

  You too will be drunk; you will be hidden; you too will seek a stronghold from the enemy.

And 1 more times.