StrongerBible

ḥaqar

חָקַר

HebrewH2713“search, search out, ...”

Appears 27 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 13:14(15)Jdg 18:2 (2×)1Sa 20:122Sa 10:31Ki 7:471Ch 19:32Ch 4:18Job 5:27Job 13:9Job 28:3Job 28:27Job 29:16Job 32:11Psa 44:21(22)Psa 139:1Psa 139:23Pro 18:17Pro 23:30Pro 25:2Pro 28:11Ecc 12:9Jer 17:10Jer 31:37Jer 46:23Lam 3:40Ezk 39:14
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekhah-KARverb

What ḥaqar means

to search out thoroughly: to probe something to its farthest reach in order to uncover what is hidden, whether a place, a legal case, a mystery, or a person's inner life

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

The core idea is thorough, methodical probing aimed at what is hidden. That single idea stretches across very concrete tasks and very abstract ones.

  • Scouts search out a land
  • A miner bores through rock toward the last seam of ore
  • An official weighs bronze until the amount is settled

In each the searcher goes all the way to the bottom of the thing rather than stopping at the surface.

The same verb then reaches into the mind and the courtroom.

  • Judges cross-examine a case
  • A sage sifts and arranges proverbs
  • A community examines its own conduct before turning back to God

What ties these to the physical uses is the drive to get to the truth of a matter and not settle for a first impression.

Its heaviest use is for searching a person. When God is the one searching, the word carries its full force: God searches the heart and knows a person completely, more thoroughly than anyone can know themselves. Psalm 139 opens and closes with it, moving from "you have searched me and known me" to the bold invitation "search me, O God." The prophet Jeremiah makes the same claim, that only God can truly search the human heart. That searching is at once a comfort to the innocent and a warning to the guilty, and the Hebrew leaves both open.

Nuances

1ato explore or scout out a place or physical thing, working it to its limits, as scouts survey land or a miner cuts through rock
Jdg 18:2 (2×)2Sa 10:31Ch 19:3Job 28:3Pro 23:30Jer 31:37Ezk 39:14
1bto investigate a legal case with due diligence: to weigh the evidence and cross-examine, so a verdict never rests on one side's word alone
Deu 13:14(15)Job 29:16Pro 18:17
1cto search out and get to the bottom of a matter in order to understand it, from a scholar sifting his material to a person examining their own life
Job 5:27Job 28:27Job 32:11Pro 25:2Pro 28:11Ecc 12:9Lam 3:40
1dto search a person through and through: to examine someone's inner life, disposition, or hidden motives, the searching that God alone does completely
1Sa 20:12Job 13:9Psa 44:21(22)Psa 139:1Psa 139:23Jer 17:10
Psa 139:1

What kind of searching Psalm 139:1 (and its echo in verse 23) describes.

  • contestedLegal, courtroom-style examination: the psalm is the prayer of an accused but innocent person who invites God's investigation as the way to vindication.; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 510-513; Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, rev. ed., WBC 21 (Nashville: Nelson, 2002), 322-332; Ernst Wurthwein, 'Erwagungen zu Psalm CXXXIX,' Vetus Testamentum 7 (1957): 165-182
  • contestedIntimate, relational knowing rather than scrutiny: the verb evokes the closeness of being fully known by God.; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 101-150, AB 17A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), 284-295; Artur Weiser, The Psalms, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962)
  • contestedDeliberately ambiguous: the searching is welcome vindication for the innocent and threatening exposure for the guilty, and the psalm keeps both edges.; John Goldingay, Psalms, Volume 3: Psalms 90-150, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 626-645; David G. Firth, 'Psalm 139: A Study in Ambiguity,' Old Testament Essays 32/2 (2019): 491-510
  • minoritySpatial and exploratory: the same verb used of spies scouting land, so God reconnoiters the human interior with the completeness of a scout mapping terrain.; Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms (New York: Norton, 2007), on Psalm 139:1
1eto ascertain an amount by reckoning: to search out how much or how many, used mostly of quantities too great to be counted
1Ki 7:472Ch 4:18Jer 46:23

What scholars say about ḥaqar

Lexica agree the verb denotes thorough investigation, but split on diachrony. Gesenius, followed by BDB and Strong's, posited a concrete original sense ("penetrate, dig into"), supported by the mining imagery of Job 28:3, the pairing with רגל ("spy") in Judges 18:2 and 2 Samuel 10:3 // 1 Chronicles 19:3, and the derived noun מֶחְקָר for spatial depths (Psalm 95:4); HALOT organizes the entry agnostically by attested sense. S. Wagner (TDOT) sorts the usage into five categories (exploratory, forensic, intellectual, divine examination of persons, and quantitative reckoning) that map cleanly onto the distribution. The cognate profile is narrow: a secure cognate only in Aramaic and Syriac (whence Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew מֶחְקָר, "research"), with no reliable Akkadian or Ugaritic equivalent, and the phonetically identical Arabic root ḥ-q-r ("despise") rejected as a false friend by BDB, HALOT, and Klein. Deuteronomy 13:14 fixes the verb in a judicial triplet of due process (Weinfeld, Tigay). Job is the semantic epicenter: the friends deploy the אֵין חֵקֶר ("beyond searching") topos (Clines, Habel), while Job 28:27 stages the reversal in which God himself searches wisdom out. In Proverbs the verb names a royal and judicial virtue (Fox, Waltke, Proverbs 25:2), and the Niphal reckoning use (1 Kings 7:47; Jeremiah 46:23) is best read as royal-inscription hyperbole (Cogan, Sweeney). The Piel at Ecclesiastes 12:9 pictures the sage as an editor-researcher (Seow, Fox). Psalm 139:1 is the largest interpretive battleground, with a forensic reading (Kraus, Allen, Wurthwein, Hossfeld/Zenger), a relational reading (Dahood, Weiser, Terrien), a deliberate-ambiguity reading (Goldingay, Firth), and Alter's spatial-exploratory reading. Jeremiah 17:10 gives the prophetic locus classicus for God as searcher of hearts (Holladay, Lundbom), and Isaiah 40:28 turns divine unsearchability into exilic comfort (Oswalt), a motif the Septuagint's ἀνεξιχνίαστος carries into Romans 11:33.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), 350lexicon
  • Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), rev. Stamm, Eng. ed. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2000), s.v. חקרlexicon
  • S. Wagner, 'חקר ḥāqar,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 148-150theological-dictionary
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (New York: Macmillan, 1987), s.v. חקרdictionary
  • Norman Habel, The Book of Job, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 393-397commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, WBC 18A (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), on 28:27 and 29:16commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, AYB 18B (New Haven: Yale, 2009), on 18:17, 25:2, 28:11commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), on 25:2commentary
  • Choon-Leong Seow, Ecclesiastes, AB 18C (New York: Doubleday, 1997), on 12:9commentary
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, AB 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991); Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1996), on 13:15commentary
  • Mordecai Cogan, 1 Kings, AB 10 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 269-270commentary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: Chapters 1-25, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 490-498commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20, AB 21A (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 793-796commentary
  • John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 74-75commentary
  • Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 510-513commentary
  • John Goldingay, Psalms, Volume 3: Psalms 90-150, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 626-645commentary
  • David G. Firth, 'Psalm 139: A Study in Ambiguity,' Old Testament Essays 32/2 (2019): 491-510article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of חָקַר

qal infinitive-construct construct

חְקֹר, חֲקוֹר, חֲקֹר, חָקְרָ

1Ch 19:3, Pro 23:30, 2Sa 10:3, Pro 25:2, Jdg 18:2

qal imperfect 3ms

יַחְקְרֶ, יַחְקֹר, יַחֲקָר

Pro 28:11, Job 13:9, Psa 44:21

niphal perfect 3ms

נֶחְקַר

1Ki 7:47, 2Ch 4:18

qal imperfect 1cs

אֶחְקְרֵ, אֶחְקֹר

Job 29:16, 1Sa 20:12

qal participle m s absolute

חוֹקֵר, חֹקֵר

Job 28:3, Jer 17:10

niphal conjunctive-imperfect 3mp

וְיֵחָקְרוּ

Jer 31:37

niphal imperfect 3ms

יֵחָקֵר

Jer 46:23

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְחִקֵּר

Ecc 12:9

qal cohortative 1cp

נַחְקֹרָה

Lam 3:40

qal consecutive-perfect 2ms

וְחָקַרְתָּ

Deu 13:14

qal consecutive-perfect 3ms

וַחֲקָר

Pro 18:17

qal imperative 2mp

חִקְרוּ

Jdg 18:2

qal imperative 2ms

חָקְרֵ

Psa 139:23

qal imperfect 2mp

תַּחְקְרוּ

Job 32:11

qal imperfect 3mp

יַחְקֹרוּ

Ezk 39:14

qal perfect 1cp

חֲקַרְנוּ

Job 5:27

qal perfect 2ms

חֲקַרְתַּ

Psa 139:1

qal perfect 3ms

חֲקָרָ

Job 28:27