Lexicon

H4191 - mut

Strong's: H4191 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: mooth (Hebrew mût) Part of speech: verb (the standard biblical-Hebrew verb for "to die") Frequency: ~835 occurrences across the Hebrew Bible, among the most-used verbs in the OT, distributed across narrative, legal, prophetic, and wisdom genres. LXX equivalent: primarily ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnēskō, G599), lexicon entry queued; also θνῄσκω, θανατόω (thanatoō, "to put to death"). Cognate noun: mavet (H4194, מָוֶת), "death"; the nominal form from the same root. Lexicon entry queued.

Semantic range (Brown-Driver-Briggs / HALOT)

The verb's meaning shifts by binyan (Hebrew verbal stem). The semantic range covers physical death, judicial execution, eschatological death, and (via metaphor / extension) spiritual death and figurative dying.

Qal (intransitive, "to die")

Die a natural death, the standard usage: "Abraham breathed his last and died" (Gen 25:8); "Sarah died in Kiriath-arba" (Gen 23:2).
Die a violent / judicial death, by another's hand or by divine judgment: "the man who has eaten of the tree shall surely die" (Gen 3, fulfilled across Gen 5); "the soul that sins, it shall die" (Ezek 18:4, 20).
Be near death / dying, used of Jacob (Gen 47:29), Moses (Deut 31:14), David (1 Kgs 2:1).
Death as eschatological judgment, "the day you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17); the foundational warning text for the Original-Sin / Federal-Headship apparatus.

Hiphil (causative transitive, "to put to death / to kill")

Kill / put to death, the executive form: "I myself shall put to death and shall give life" (Deut 32:39, divine prerogative); the standard verb in capital-punishment legal-formulae ("he shall be put to death", Lev 20:9-16, 24:16-17, etc.); "Saul has killed his thousands, David his ten thousands" (1 Sam 18:7).

Hophal (passive of Hiphil, "to be put to death / to be killed")

Be executed / killed by another agent, passive of Hiphil; the standard formula in capital-punishment law: "the murderer shall be put to death" (Num 35:16-21); "they shall be killed" (Lev 20).

Polel / Polal (intensive, "to slay / be slain")

Slay (with finality / completion), Polel: David to the Amalekite who claimed to have killed Saul (2 Sam 1:15); "you shall not put to death the children for the fathers" (Deut 24:16).
Be slain, Polal passive: "the slain shall be slain" (Ezek 26:15, figurative).

Theological force

Mût is the load-bearing death-verb of the Hebrew Bible and accordingly carries enormous theological weight. Five intersecting streams:

Stream 1, The death-penalty of Genesis 2:17 (the mot tamut construction)

Genesis 2:17, "in the day that you eat from it mot tamut" (מוֹת תָּמוּת), pairs the infinitive-absolute mot (the noun-form derived from the verbal root) with the imperfect tamut ("you will die"). This is the infinitive-absolute construction, the standard biblical-Hebrew device for intensified certainty of judgment.

The construction's modal force is certainly will die, absolutely will die, unfailingly will die, emphasizing the unavoidability of the future event, not its instantaneous execution. The English idiom "you shall surely die" (KJV / NASB) attempts to capture this, the surely renders the certainty intensification, not a temporal qualifier.

This construction matters apologetically: the surface-empirical objection ("they ate and didn't die that day") rests on a misreading of mot tamut as declaring immediacy when it actually declares certainty. Compare these other infinitive-absolute uses where immediacy is plainly NOT in view:

1 Samuel 14:39, Saul: "mot yumat" ("he shall surely die"), judicial-oath of future execution, not immediate.
1 Kings 2:37, Solomon to Shimei: "in the day you cross the Kidron, know for certain that mot tamut" (you shall surely die), establishes a future-tripwire with no immediacy clause.
Ezekiel 3:18, 33:8, the watchman texts: the wicked shall mot yumat, eschatological judgment, certainty of future event.

The Hebrew language itself guards the truth of God's warning in Genesis 2:17. See Genesis 2.16-17 for the verse-level deployment + the apologetic against "they ate and didn't die" surface-readings.

Stream 2, Death as the wages of sin (Romans 5:12 axis)

Through mût in Genesis 2:17, the Pauline apparatus of Romans 5:12 ("through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin") establishes death-via-Adam as the doctrinal frame. Every subsequent use of mût in the OT, every funeral, every executed criminal, every battle-killed soldier, is a downstream realization of the Genesis 2:17 mot tamut. Adam's death (Gen 5:5) at 930 closes the demonstration: mût did indeed come.

Cross-anchored at:

Genesis 2.16-17, the foundational warning
Romans 5.12, the Pauline frame (LXX apethanen / thanatos)
1 Corinthians 15:21-22, "for since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die (apothnēskousin), so also in Christ all shall be made alive"
John 11.25, the Christological reversal

Stream 3, The capital-punishment apparatus of Mosaic Law

The Hiphil ("put to death") and Hophal ("be put to death") forms of mût are the formula-verbs in Mosaic capital-punishment legislation. The construction mot yumat (the infinitive-absolute + Hophal), "he shall surely be put to death", recurs ~21× across Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy:

Exodus 21:12, 15-17, striking, kidnapping, cursing parents
Exodus 22:18-19, sorcery, bestiality
Leviticus 20:2-16, Molech-worship, mediums, adultery, incest, homosexual acts
Leviticus 24:16-17, blasphemy, murder
Numbers 35:16-21, premeditated murder
Deuteronomy 13:5-10; 17:2-7; 22:22, 25, apostasy, idolatry, certain sexual offenses

The repeated infinitive-absolute construction signals judicial certainty: the law's capital sanctions are absolute and non-negotiable when the established conditions are met. See Mosaic Capital Punishment for the theological-ethical treatment + apologetic engagement with critics.

Stream 4, Death as the boundary between covenant-modes

The contrast mût / ḥayah ("die" / "live") is the load-bearing covenant-decision idiom: "I have set before you life and death... therefore choose life" (Deut 30:19); "the soul that sins, it shall die" / "the righteous shall live by his faith" (Ezek 18:20 / Hab 2:4). The Pauline appropriation of Hab 2:4 across Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38 makes this the key OT-NT bridge into the doctrine of justification.

Stream 5, The metaphysical ground of the Resurrection apologetic

If mût is universal, if every member of the Adamic race dies, then the Resurrection of Christ is the categorically anomalous event that ruptures the mût-universality. The OT death-vocabulary supplies the foil; the NT Resurrection vocabulary (ἀνάστασις / ἐγείρω) supplies the answer. See Argument from the Resurrection.

Notable verses (within and outside this codex)

Original-Sin / Fall axis

Genesis 2.16-17, mot tamut, "you will surely die", the foundational use of the infinitive-absolute construction
Genesis 3:3-4, Eve's repetition + the serpent's contradiction (lo mot temutun, "you shall surely NOT die")
Genesis 5:5, "all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died", the empirical fulfillment of Genesis 2:17
Genesis 5 (genealogy), the refrain "and he died" repeats for every patriarch except Enoch, closing the demonstration of mût universality
Numbers 23:19, "God is not a man (ish) that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His mind"

Capital-punishment legal-formula

Exodus 21:12, "he who strikes a man so that he dies (wamet) shall surely be put to death (mot yumat)"
Leviticus 20:2, Molech-worship: "the people of the land shall stone him with stones", mot yumat
Leviticus 24:16, blasphemy: "the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death (mot yumat)"
Numbers 35:30-31, capital murder: cannot be redeemed by ransom

Eschatological / spiritual-death usage

Ezekiel 3:18, "if you do not warn the wicked... that wicked person shall die (yamut) in his iniquity"
Ezekiel 18:4, 20, "the soul that sins, it shall die"
Hosea 13:14, "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death (mavet)", quoted at 1 Cor 15:55
Habakkuk 2:4, "the righteous shall live by his faith", implicit antithesis to mût

Davidic / royal death-and-life

2 Samuel 7, David's longing to build the temple "before he dies"
1 Kings 2:1-10, "David's days drew near that he should die"
Isaiah 38, Hezekiah's near-death: "set your house in order, for you die and shall not live"

Word-family connections

mavet (H4194, מָוֶת), the masculine noun "death," nominal form of the same root. ~150 occurrences. Personified as a power in Hosea 13:14, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55. Pairs with Sheol (the place of the dead). Lexicon entry queued.
mowt (H4193, מוֹת), the construct form / infinitive used in mot tamut and similar constructions.
rephaim (H7496, רְפָאִים), "the dead / shades" (Sheol-dwellers); pairs with mût in Isaiah 14:9, 26:14, 26:19. Lexicon entry queued.
sheol (H7585, שְׁאוֹל), the underworld / abode of the dead. Lexicon entry queued.
gava (H1478, גָּוַע), "to expire / breathe last", synonym used in patriarchal death-narratives (Gen 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33). Lexicon entry queued.

LXX bridge (Greek-Hebrew correspondence)

ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnēskō), the standard rendering of Qal mût in the LXX; carries through into the NT (~111 NT occurrences; "for the wages of sin is death," Rom 6:23, uses the cognate noun thanatos).
θανατόω (thanatoō), common rendering of the Hiphil "put to death."
τελευτάω (teleutaō), "come to an end / die"; less common, sometimes used in LXX for euphemistic / dignified-death contexts.
thanatos (G2288), the cognate Greek noun "death" in the NT; load-bearing for Romans 5-6, 1 Corinthians 15, Hebrews 2. Lexicon entry queued.

Patristic / theological notes

Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIII.12-15, distinguishes "first death" (separation of soul from body) from "second death" (separation of soul from God in eschatological judgment). Genesis 2:17's mot tamut encompasses both, beginning with the spiritual rupture (Gen 3:8 hiding) and culminating in physical death (Gen 5:5).
Calvin, Institutes II.1.5-7, Genesis 2:17's death-warning establishes the federal headship of Adam: "the spiritual death is plainly described where it is said that they were severed from the life of God"; physical death is the visible sign of the prior spiritual rupture.
John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith II.30, death as "the privation of life" rather than a positive substance; coheres with the Augustinian privation-theory of evil.

Apologetic deployment

Against "they ate and didn't die that day": deploy the infinitive-absolute construction analysis. Mot tamut declares certainty, not immediacy. The Hebrew construction itself rules out the surface-objection. Cross-cite 1 Sam 14:39, 1 Kgs 2:37, Ezek 3:18 for parallel uses where immediacy is plainly not in view.
Against "the death-warning was metaphorical / spiritual only, so no real penalty": distinguish the three modes (spiritual, physical, cosmic), spiritual death came immediately (Gen 3:8 hiding); physical death came eventually (Gen 5:5 fulfillment); cosmic curse came at Gen 3:17-19. All three are real; the warning was multi-modal.
Against "Mosaic capital punishments are arbitrary divine cruelty": note the recurring mot yumat infinitive-absolute construction signaling judicial certainty; pair with Mosaic Capital Punishment which engages the broader ethical apologetic.
Against the universalist soft-reading of Ezekiel 18 ("the soul that sins shall die"): the yamut in Ezek 18:4, 20 carries the full mût semantic weight, final, eschatological, judicial. The text is not metaphor; it grounds the doctrine of human accountability under divine judgment.

Verses in this codex

Rely on Obsidian's backlinks pane to surface verse pages that link to this entry. Notable verse-pages explicitly linking back: Genesis 2.16-17 (rich hub, deploys the mot tamut analysis), Romans 5.12, John 11.25, Genesis 5, Ezekiel 18 / Ezekiel 3, Numbers 23.19 (all linkable as those pages mature).