Strong’s H4682 · Hebrew

מַצָּה
matstsâh
mats-tsaw'

Definition

properly, sweetness; concretely, sweet (i.e. not soured or bittered with yeast); specifically, an unfermented cake or loaf, or (elliptically) the festival of Passover (because no leaven was then used)

Etymology

from H4711 (מָצַץ) in the sense of greedily devouring for sweetness;

Where the KJV renders it

  • unleaved (bread
  • cake)
  • without leaven

Every distinct English word the King James Version uses to translate this Hebrew term. The variety shows what readers in English receive across many different surface words — the same underlying word, scattered across the English Bible under different names.

What the first audience heard

A deep-dive treatment of this word is in the works. The featured chapter above carries the long form of what this word meant to its first audience.