maktesh Summary and Overview

mortar, a place in or near Jerusalem inhabited by silver merchants (Zeph. 1:11). It has been conjectured that it was the "Phoenician quarter" of the city, where the traders of that nation resided, after the Oriental custom.

(a mortar or deep hollow), a place evidently in Jerusalem, the inhabitants of which are denounced by Zephaniah. #Zep 1:11| Ewald conjectures that it was the Phoenician quarter" of the city.

MAK'TESH (mortar), a place in Jerusalem denounced by Zephaniah. Zeph 1:11. Ewald conjectures that it was the "Phoenician quarter" of the city, and the Targum identifies it with the Kedron. Jerome places it in the lower city, where were bazaars of merchants at the time of the siege by Titus.

("the mortar") (the article is in the Hebrew, showing it is not a proper name). The hollow in Jerusalem where the merchants carried on traffic. The deep valley between the temple and upper city, crowded with merchant bazaars (Grove): Zephaniah 1:11. Jerome makes it the valley of Siloam; "howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down." The Tyropeon valley below Mount Acra (Rosenmuller). Better (Maurer) Jerusalem itself, embosomed amidst hills. Isaiah 22:1, "the valley of vision"; Jeremiah 22:1, "O inhabitress of the valley and rock of the plain," doomed to be the scene of its people being as it were pounded in "the mortar" (Proverbs 27:22). So Jerusalem is compared to a pot in Ezekiel 24:3,6: "set on a pot ... woe to the bloody city, to the loot whose scum is therein."