Maqor

מָקוֹר

What the Word Actually Means

The source-word: the spring a mikvah wants at its highest grade, the fountain of life, and, in the Torah's own usage, the source of the deepest impurity. One word holds both ends.

Maqor is the word for a source, the place water rises from ground on its own, and the Tanakh spends it at both ends of the human story. The Torah uses it for the fountain of the niddah's blood, the source of the deepest impurity in the system (Leviticus 20:18). The prophets use it for the fountain HaShem opens "for sin and for uncleanness" in the last days (Zechariah 13:1). And twice Yirmeyahu uses it for HaShem Himself, "the maqor of living waters" (Jeremiah 2:13).

The English versions are not wrong, they are scattered: "fountain" here, "flow" there, "spring" and "wellspring" elsewhere in the KJV, ESV, NASB, and NIV, and the reader never feels the wire running between the verses, because the one word arrives wearing four costumes.

Read it as one word and the purity system closes its own circuit: the spring of the uncleanness and the spring that answers it carry the same name, and the Fountain of life stands behind both. "With You is the maqor of life" (Psalms 36:9). The wound and the cure share a word so that you cannot find one without meeting the other.

What English Gives You

fountain, spring, source

The Original

מָקוֹר

Where to Find It

Leviticus 20:18, Zechariah 13:1, Jeremiah 2:13, Psalms 36:9

Source Language

Hebrew

The Root

קור (q-w-r, to dig; so BDB)

How to Say It

maqor

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