Hebrew word · H4465

מִמְכָּר

mikar

sale

The verb means to sell or hand over for a price. It can also mean to hand someone over or give someone up (Judg 2:14, God 'sold' Israel to enemies). The noun means a sale, the thing sold, merchandise (Neh 13:20), or the value or property that was sold (Lev 25:25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 50).

Appears 10 times in 10 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

sale, ware, thing sold

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 Leviticus 25:14

Range of meaning

The verb means to sell or hand over for a price. It can also mean to hand someone over or give someone up (Judg 2:14, God 'sold' Israel to enemies). The noun means a sale, the thing sold, merchandise (Neh 13:20), or the value or property that was sold (Lev 25:25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 50).

Against the English

English 'sell' assumes ownership changes hands for good. Leviticus 25 says outright that family land 'shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine' (v. 23). So the 'sale' of land is really the sale of a set number of harvests, roughly a lease running to the next Jubilee (vv. 15–16).

How it drifted

Modern property law treats a sale as permanent transfer. A reader brings that picture to the text without noticing.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ezek 7:13 echoes the Jubilee law: 'the seller will not return to what he sold [ha-mimkar]'. Jer 32:6–15 shows a family 'redemption' purchase to keep land in the clan. Naboth's refusal in 1 Kgs 21:3 rests on the same idea that ancestral land is not for sale.

Where it appears

Leviticus · 7

  1. Leviticus 25:14 מִמְכָּר֙ a thing sold

    If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other.

    Here: Comes from the same root as the verb: literally 'sell a sale', meaning make any sale at all. Elsewhere in the chapter (vv. 25, 27, 28) the same noun names the land or value someone sold, and that is what is chiefly in view here.

  2. Leviticus 25:25 מִמְכַּ֥ר [the] thing sold of

    If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his nearest of kin may come and redeem what his brother has sold.

  3. Leviticus 25:27 מִמְכָּר֔וֹ sale its

    he shall calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property.

  4. Leviticus 25:28 מִמְכָּר֗וֹ thing sold his

    But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee, however, it is to be released, so that he may return to his property.

  5. Leviticus 25:29 מִמְכָּר֑וֹ sale its

    If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains his right of redemption until a full year after its sale; during that year it may be redeemed.

  6. Leviticus 25:33 מִמְכַּר־ [the] sale of

    So whatever belongs to the Levites may be redeemed—a house sold in a city they possess—and must be released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the Israelites.

  7. Leviticus 25:50 מִמְכָּרוֹ֙ sale his

    He and his purchaser will then count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale will be determined by the number of years, based on the daily wages of a hired hand.

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 18:8 מִמְכָּרָ֖יו sales his

    They shall eat equal portions, even though he has received money from the sale of his father’s estate.

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 13:20 מִמְכָּ֛ר merchandise

    Once or twice, the merchants and those who sell all kinds of goods camped outside Jerusalem,

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 7:13 הַמִּמְכָּר֙ the thing sold

    The seller will surely not recover what he sold while both remain alive. For the vision concerning the whole multitude will not be revoked, and because of their iniquity, not one of them will preserve his life.

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