Hebrew word · H4745

מִקְרֶה

mikreh

accident

From the root q-r-h ("to meet, encounter, happen"). Its meanings run from (1) a chance occurrence or accident (1 Sam 6:9, "it was a chance that happened to us"; Ruth 2:3, "she happened upon") to (2) what befalls someone, their lot or outcome.

Appears 10 times in 8 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) unforeseen meeting or event, accident, happening, chance, fortune

1a) accident, chance

1b) fortune, fate

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 Ecclesiastes 9:3

Range of meaning

From the root q-r-h ("to meet, encounter, happen"). Its meanings run from (1) a chance occurrence or accident (1 Sam 6:9, "it was a chance that happened to us"; Ruth 2:3, "she happened upon") to (2) what befalls someone, their lot or outcome. In Ecclesiastes (2:14, 15; 3:19 three times; 9:2, 3) it always refers to death as the one event that 'meets' everyone.

Against the English

"Fate" (BSB, NASB) and "destiny" (NIV) suggest an outcome set in advance by an impersonal power or by divine decree. The KJV's "event" (meaning "outcome" in older English) and the ESV's "event" stay closer to the root idea of "what happens to" someone.

How it drifted

"Fate" comes from Latin fatum ("what has been spoken" by the gods) and carries Greco-Roman ideas of an inescapable decree. Miqreh says nothing about who decides. It names the event that comes upon you, not a force behind it.

Used elsewhere in the period

1 Sam 6:9; 20:26; Ruth 2:3. The Greek translation of Ecclesiastes (LXX) uses synantēma ("encounter, what one meets"), keeping the root image. Qohelet's use is distinctive: he narrows the word to death as the great leveller.

From the study of Ecclesiastes 2:14

Range of meaning

A noun from qarah, 'to meet, encounter, befall'. Its basic meaning is 'what meets you, what happens to you': an occurrence a person does not control. Elsewhere it can mean an unplanned chance occurrence (1 Sam 6:9, 'it was a chance that happened to us'; Ruth 2:3, where Ruth 'happened to happen upon' Boaz's field) or an accidental ritual defilement (1 Sam 20:26). In Ecclesiastes it becomes a fixed term for the one outcome that comes upon every living thing, namely death (2:14–15; 3:19, where humans and animals share one miqreh; 9:2–3).

Against the English

KJV/WEB/YLT 'event'; BSB, NIV, NASB, NLT 'fate'; ESV 'the same event'. 'Event' is too bland for modern readers. 'Fate' catches the inevitability but brings in the idea of a predetermined destiny or a personified Fate, which the Hebrew word does not carry. Miqreh is not about who decrees the outcome. It is about what happens to you.

How it drifted

English 'fate' comes from Latin fatum, 'what has been spoken (by the gods)', and carries the classical idea of a destiny fixed in advance. Qoheleth's word looks at the same reality from the receiving end: the thing that meets you. Elsewhere he does say that God sets the times (3:1–15), but this word itself makes no claim about decree.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint renders it συνάντημα (synantēma, 'a meeting, encounter') and the verb συναντήσεται ('will meet'), keeping both the meeting image and the sound-play. Jerome's Latin Vulgate interprets it outright as interitus, 'death, destruction'. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) give 'chance, accident, fate, lot' and note the specialized use in Qoheleth.

From the study of Ecclesiastes 9:2

Range of meaning

A noun built on the root q-r-h, "to meet, encounter, happen." It means "what happens, what befalls, an occurrence," often with the sense of something that comes upon a person unplanned. It can mean a chance event (1 Sam 6:9: "it was a chance that happened to us"; Ruth 2:3, literally "her happening happened" when Ruth lands in Boaz's field), a ritual mishap such as a nocturnal emission (Deut 23:10, related form), and in Ecclesiastes the final event that meets everyone, death (HALOT, BDB).

Against the English

KJV/WEB: "event"; BSB, NASB: "fate"; NIV: "destiny"; ESV: "event." "Fate" and "destiny" bring in the idea of a fixed, predetermined future, close to the Greek idea of moira. The Hebrew word says nothing about who decrees it or when. It names what happens to you, the thing that meets you on the road.

How it drifted

"Event" in 1611 still carried its Latin sense of "outcome, result" (eventus); today it means an occasion. "Fate" in modern English suggests cosmic predestination or an impersonal force, and that reading finds support in the Hellenistic setting some scholars give the book, but the Hebrew word itself is more modest.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint renders it synantēma, "an encounter, a meeting," which keeps the root idea of "meeting." Within Ecclesiastes: 2:14–15 (wise and fool share one miqreh, and 2:16 says it is death); 3:19 (one miqreh for humans and beasts: "as one dies, so dies the other"); 9:2–3 (one miqreh for all, followed by "afterward, to the dead").

Where it appears

Ruth · 1

  1. Ruth 2:3 מִקְרֶ֔הָ chance her

    So Ruth departed and went out into the field and gleaned after the harvesters. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

1 Samuel · 2

  1. 1 Samuel 6:9 מִקְרֶ֥ה chance

    but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”

  2. 1 Samuel 20:26 מִקְרֶ֣ה [is] an accident

    Saul said nothing that day because he thought, “Something has happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean—surely he is unclean.”

Ecclesiastes · 7

  1. Ecclesiastes 2:14 שֶׁמִּקְרֶ֥ה that fate

    The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both.

    Here: 'That a happening': what comes upon a person whether they choose it or not. Verses 15–16 show that here it means death, the thing that meets everyone. The prefix she- ('that') is a feature of later Hebrew.

  2. Ecclesiastes 2:15 כְּמִקְרֵ֤ה like [the] fate of

    So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?” And I said to myself that this too is futile.

  3. Ecclesiastes 3:19 מִקְרֶ֨ה וּמִקְרֶ֣ה וּמִקְרֶ֤ה [the] fate of, and [the] fate of, and fate

    For the fates of both men and beasts are the same: As one dies, so dies the other—they all have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animals, since everything is futile.

  4. Ecclesiastes 9:2 מִקְרֶ֨ה fate

    It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

    Here: Literally "what meets you," from a verb meaning "to meet, happen." In Ecclesiastes it is the thing that finally meets every person, which is death (see 2:14–16; 3:19; 9:3).

  5. Ecclesiastes 9:3 מִקְרֶ֥ה fate

    This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.

    Here: "What happens to" a person, the thing that "meets" them. In Qohelet the word means death, the one outcome nobody escapes (2:14–15; 3:19).

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