Maktesh

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("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."

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Maktesh The name of a locality mentioned only in   Zephaniah 1:11 as ‘the PhÅ“nician quarter’ (?) of Jerusalem. The word denotes a mortar , and presumably was given to the place because it was basin-shaped. If so, a part of the TyropÅ“on valley has as good a claim as any other locality to be regarded as what is referred to. Certainly the Mt. of Olives is but a precarious conjecture.

W. F. Cobb.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Mak'tesh. (A Mortar or Deep Hollow). A place, evidently in Jerusalem, the inhabitants of which are denounced by Zephaniah.  Zephaniah 1:11. Ewald conjectures that it was the "Phoenician quarter" of the city.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

District in or near Jerusalem where merchants traded.  Zephaniah 1:11 . The Targum associates it with the Kedron valley.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

 Zephaniah 1:11 , apparently in or near Jerusalem, and occupied by merchants; but we have no clue to its location.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Zephaniah 1:11

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Zephaniah 1:11

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. Maktesh', מִכְתֵּשׁ [but with the art.], a Mortar, as in  Proverbs 27:12, or the sockets of a tooth, as in  Judges 15:19; Sept. renders Κατακεκομμένη , Vulg. Pila ) , a place in or near Jerusalem, mentioned as inhabited. apparently by silver-merchants ( Zephaniah 1:11). Gesenius regards it as the name of a valley, so called from its mortar-like shape ( Thesaurus, p. 725). The rabbins understand the Kedron and other less likely places to be meant. Ewald conjectures ( Propheten, P. 364) that it was the "Phoenician quarter" of the city, in which the traders of that nation-the Canaanites (A. Vers. "merchants"), who in this passage are associated with Maktesh — resided, after the custom in Oriental towns. Dr. Barclay (City of the Great King, p. 100,157, 173) ingeniously suggests that it may have been a quarter devoted to minting operations, and therefore situated near the goldsmith's bazaar, which was doubtless located somewhere in Acra or the lower city, but whether in the Tyropceon adjoining the Temple, where he places it, is uncertain.