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Find
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Mâtsâ' (מָצָא, Strong's #4672), “to find, meet, get.” This word is found in every branch of the Semitic languages (including biblical Aramaic) and in all periods. It is attested both in biblical (about 455 times) and post-biblical Hebrew.
Mâtsâ' refers to “finding” someone or something that is lost or misplaced, or “finding” where it is. The thing may be found as the result of a purposeful search, as when the Sodomites were temporarily blinded by Lot’s visitors and were not able to “find” the door to his house (Gen. 19:11). In a very similar usage, the dove sent forth by Noah searched for a spot to land and was unable to “find” it (Gen. 8:9). On other occasions, the location of something or someone may be found without an intentional search, as when Cain said: "[Whoever] findeth me shall slay me” (Gen. 4:14).
Mâtsâ' may connote not only “finding” a subject in a location, but “finding something” in an abstract sense. This idea is demonstrated clearly by Gen. 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” He found—“received”—something he did not seek. This sense also includes “finding” something one has sought in a spiritual or mental sense: “Mine hand had gotten much …” (Job 31:25). Laban tells Jacob: “… If I have found favor in thine eyes, [stay with me] …” (Gen. 30:27). Laban is asking Jacob for a favor that he is seeking in an abstract sense.
Mâtsâ' can also mean “to discover.” God told Abraham: “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes” (Gen. 18:26). This same emphasis appears in the first biblical occurrence of the word: “… But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him” (Gen. 2:20). As noted earlier, there can be a connotation of the unintentional here, as when the Israelites “found” a man gathering wood on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32). Another special nuance is “to find out,” in the sense of “gaining knowledge about.” For example, Joseph’s brothers said: “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants …” (Gen. 44:16). Mâtsâ' sometimes suggests “being under the power” of something, in a concrete sense. David told Abishai: “… Take thou thy lord’s servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us” (2 Sam. 20:6). The idea is that Sheba would “find,” enter, and defend himself in fortified cities. So to “find” them could be to “take them over.” This usage appears also in an abstract sense. Judah told Joseph: “For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father” (Gen. 44:34). The word mâtsâ' therefore, can mean not only to “find” something, but to “obtain” it as one’s own: “Then Isaac sowed in that landand received in the same year …” (Gen. 26:12).
Infrequently, the word implies movement in a direction until one arrives at a destination; thus it is related to the Ugaritic root meaning “reach” or “arrive” (mts). This sense is found in Job 11:7: “Canst thou by searching find out God?” (cf. 1 Sam. 23:17). In a somewhat different nuance, this meaning appears in Num. 11:22: “Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them?”
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Find'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/f/find.html. 1940.
