🔼The name Matred: Summary
- Meaning
- Nagging, Continuous Dripping
- Etymology
- From the verb טרד (tarad), to continue, to drip.
🔼The name Matred in the Bible
Matred is the mother of Mehetabel, the wife of king Hadar (or Hadad according to 1 Chronicles 1:50) of Edom (Genesis 36:39).
🔼Etymology of the name Matred
The name Matred comes from the verb טרד (tarad), meaning to pursue, chase or to be continuous:
טרד
The verb טרד (tarad) means to follow one after the other, or be continuous (like dripping water or a nagging person).
Other interesting words are the verb מטר (matar), meaning to rain (Genesis 2:5, Amos 4:7), and its identical parent noun מטר (matar), meaning rain (Exodus 9:33, Deuteronomy 11:11).
It's pretty safe to say that to a Hebrew audience the name Matred would have to do with Rain.
🔼Matred meaning
The name Matred looks like it is an expression of the verb טרד comparable with the English present continuous tense, and may mean Continuing or Pursuing. For a meaning of the name Matred, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names refers to the verb טרד but also to the Chaldean cognate, which "has the sense of driving or being driven". Thus Jones reads Thrusting Forward. NOBSE Study Bible Name List, apparently, thinks along the same lines and reads Expulsion.