Hebrew word · H4117

מָהַר

mahor

to pay brideprice

The noun mohar is the marriage payment a groom (or his family) gives to the bride's father. The verb mahar, formed from it, means 'to pay the mohar for' a woman, that is, to acquire her as wife by this payment.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to obtain or acquire by paying purchase price, give a dowry

1a) (Qal) to obtain in exchange

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Exodus 22:16

Range of meaning

The noun mohar is the marriage payment a groom (or his family) gives to the bride's father. The verb mahar, formed from it, means 'to pay the mohar for' a woman, that is, to acquire her as wife by this payment. The noun appears only three times: Gen 34:12 (Shechem), Exod 22:17, and 1 Sam 18:25 (David).

Against the English

BSB, WEB and NASB say 'dowry'. KJV and YLT say 'endow'. NIV, ESV and NLT say 'bride-price', which is correct. In modern English a dowry is property the bride's family sends with her into the marriage, which is the opposite direction. The mohar flowed from the groom to her father.

How it drifted

The confusion is ancient. The Septuagint used φερνή, which in Hellenistic Egypt usually meant the dowry the bride brought, and the Vulgate used dotabit ('he shall dower'). English Bibles inherited 'endow/dowry' through that Latin tradition.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ugaritic mhr ('bride-price', in the Nikkal poem). Akkadian terḫatu is the equivalent Mesopotamian payment, covered at length in the Laws of Hammurabi and Eshnunna. The Aramaic marriage contracts from Elephantine (5th century BC) record a mhr paid to the bride's father. Deut 22:29 fixes 50 silver shekels in the parallel case of seizure, and 'the bride-price of virgins' in v. 17 implies a customary standard rate.

Where it appears

Exodus · 2

  1. Exodus 22:16 מָהֹ֛ר יִמְהָרֶ֥נָּה certainly <to pay [the] bride-price>, he will pay [the] bride-price for her

    If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and sleeps with her, he must pay the full dowry for her to be his wife.

    Here: A verb form that doubles the verb that follows it, giving emphasis: 'he shall certainly pay'. There is no escaping the obligation.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.