Hebrew word · H4119

מֹ֫הַר

mohar

brideprice

A payment the prospective groom (or his family) gave to the bride's father or family to settle a marriage. The related verb māhar in verse 16 means 'to pay the mohar for / acquire as wife by mohar'.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

purchase price for wife, wedding money

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 22:17

Range of meaning

A payment the prospective groom (or his family) gave to the bride's father or family to settle a marriage. It appears only three times in the Hebrew Bible: Gen 34:12 (Shechem offers Jacob's sons 'any mohar and gift' for Dinah), Exod 22:16–17 (Hebrew 22:15–16), and 1 Sam 18:25 (Saul demands a hundred Philistine foreskins as David's mohar for Michal). The related verb māhar in verse 16 means 'to pay the mohar for / acquire as wife by mohar'.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and NASB say 'dowry'. BSB, NIV, ESV and NLT say 'bride price' or 'bridal price'. Modern English 'dowry' means property the bride's family sends with her into the marriage, which runs the opposite direction from the mohar. 'Bride price' gets the direction right, but it can suggest a woman bought like livestock, and scholars dispute how far that picture fits.

How it drifted

Early modern English sometimes used 'dowry' loosely for any marriage settlement, including a gift from the groom. The Vulgate's dos and the Septuagint's phernē (see textual notes) had already shifted the term toward the bride-side gift. As the meaning of 'dowry' narrowed to the bride's family's contribution, the KJV wording came to mislead.

Used elsewhere in the period

The closest equivalent is Akkadian terḫatum, the marriage payment from groom to bride's father in Old Babylonian law (Laws of Hammurabi §§159–164; in some cases it was returned or passed to the bride). Ugaritic mhr appears in the poem of Nikkal and Yarikh, where the moon god pays a bride-payment for his bride. Arabic mahr is the same word, though in Islamic law it goes to the bride herself. The Mishnah (Ketubot 3) develops these laws, setting the fine for seducing or violating a virgin at fifty shekels on the basis of Deut 22:29.

Where it appears

Genesis · 1

  1. Genesis 34:12 מֹ֣הַר a bride price

    Demand a high dowry and an expensive gift, and I will give you whatever you ask. Only give me the girl as my wife!”

Exodus · 1

  1. Exodus 22:17 כְּמֹ֖הַר according to [the] bride-price of

    If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, the man still must pay an amount comparable to the bridal price of a virgin.

    Here: 'According to the mohar of...' The mohar was the payment a groom made to the bride's family. Here the man pays the amount he would have paid had he married her, but without the marriage.

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 18:25 בְּמֹ֔הַר in bride-price

    Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king desires no other dowry but a hundred Philistine foreskins as revenge on his enemies.’” But Saul intended to cause David’s death at the hands of the Philistines.

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