מָה mâh

Meaning

properly, interrogative what? (including how? why? when?); but also exclamation, what! (including how!), or indefinitely what (including whatever, and even relatively, that which); often used with prefixes in various adverbial or conjunctive senses

In the King James Version: how (long, oft, (-soever)), (no-) thing, what (end, good, purpose, thing), whereby(-fore, -in, -to, -with), (for) why.

Derivation: or מַה; or מָ; or מַ; also מֶה; a primitive particle;

Where it is used

• Ecclesiastes 2:22 For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun?
• Ecclesiastes 3:9 What does the worker gain from his toil?
• Ecclesiastes 3:15 What exists has already been, and what will be has already been, for God will call to account what has passed.
• Ecclesiastes 3:22 I have seen that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will come after him?
• Ecclesiastes 5:6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, and do not tell the messenger that your vow was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands?
• Ecclesiastes 5:11 When good things increase, so do those who consume them; what then is the profit to the owner, except to behold them with his eyes?
• Ecclesiastes 5:16 This too is a grievous affliction: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind?
• Ecclesiastes 6:8 What advantage, then, has the wise man over the fool? What gain comes to the poor man who knows how to conduct himself before others?
• Ecclesiastes 6:10 Whatever exists was named long ago, and it is known what man is; but he cannot contend with one stronger than he.
• Ecclesiastes 6:11 For the more words, the more futility—and how does that profit anyone?
• Ecclesiastes 6:12 For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun?
• Ecclesiastes 7:10 Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is unwise of you to ask about this.
• Ecclesiastes 7:16 Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?
• Ecclesiastes 7:17 Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time?
• Ecclesiastes 7:24 What exists is out of reach and very deep. Who can fathom it?
• Ecclesiastes 8:4 For the king’s word is supreme, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”
• Ecclesiastes 8:7 Since no one knows what will happen, who can tell him what is to come?
• Ecclesiastes 10:14 Yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what is coming, and who can tell him what will come after him?
• Ecclesiastes 11:2 Divide your portion among seven, or even eight, for you do not know what disaster may befall the land.
• Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.
• Song of Solomon 1:7 Tell me, O one I love, where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you rest them at midday? Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your companions?
• Song of Solomon 4:10 How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! Your love is much better than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than all spices.
• Song of Solomon 5:8 O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you, if you find my beloved, tell him I am sick with love.
• Song of Solomon 5:9 How is your beloved better than others, O most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another, that you charge us so?
• Song of Solomon 6:13 Come back, come back, O Shulammite! Come back, come back, that we may gaze upon you. Why do you look at the Shulammite, as on the dance of Mahanaim?
• Song of Solomon 7:1 How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O daughter of the prince! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the handiwork of a master.
• Song of Solomon 7:6 How fair and pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!
• Song of Solomon 8:4 O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.
• Song of Solomon 8:8 We have a little sister, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for?
• Isaiah 1:5 Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
• Isaiah 1:11 “What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
• Isaiah 2:22 Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
• Isaiah 3:15 Why do you crush My people and grind the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
• Isaiah 5:4 What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?
• Isaiah 10:3 What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
• Isaiah 14:32 What answer will be given to the envoys of that nation? “The LORD has founded Zion, where His afflicted people will find refuge.”
• Isaiah 19:12 Where are your wise men now? Let them tell you and reveal what the LORD of Hosts has planned against Egypt.
• Isaiah 21:11 This is the burden against Dumah: One calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?”
• Isaiah 22:1 This is the burden against the Valley of Vision: What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the rooftops,
• Isaiah 22:16 What are you doing here, and who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here—to chisel your tomb in the height and cut your resting place in the rock?
• Isaiah 36:4 The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?
• Isaiah 38:15 What can I say? He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done this. I will walk slowly all my years because of the anguish of my soul.
• Isaiah 38:22 And Hezekiah had asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the house of the LORD?”
• Isaiah 39:3 Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came to me from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”
• Isaiah 39:4 “What have they seen in your palace?” Isaiah asked. “They have seen everything in my palace,” answered Hezekiah. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”
• Isaiah 40:6 A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
• Isaiah 40:18 To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?
• Isaiah 40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?
• Isaiah 41:22 “Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell the former things, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome. Or announce to us what is coming.
• Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
• Isaiah 45:10 Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to his mother, ‘What have you brought forth?’”
• Isaiah 52:5 And now what have I here? declares the LORD. For My people have been taken without cause; those who rule them taunt, declares the LORD, and My name is blasphemed continually all day long.
• Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
• Isaiah 55:2 Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods.
• Isaiah 58:3 “Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.
• Isaiah 63:17 Why, O LORD, do You make us stray from Your ways and harden our hearts from fearing You? Return, for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage.
• Jeremiah 1:11 And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.
• Jeremiah 1:13 Again the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “What do you see?” “I see a boiling pot,” I replied, “and it is tilting toward us from the north.”
• Jeremiah 2:5 This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves.
• Jeremiah 2:18 Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?