StrongerBible

ḥeqer

חֵקֶר

HebrewH2714“unsearchable, searching, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jdg 5:16Job 5:9Job 8:8Job 9:10Job 11:7Job 34:24Job 36:26Job 38:16Psa 145:3Pro 25:3Pro 25:27Isa 40:28
Root family
Word studyKHAY-kernoun

What ḥeqer means

a searching out: the probing of a matter to get to the bottom of it, or the hidden bottom such probing is trying to reach

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This is the noun that belongs to the verb for searching something out (חקר). It does not describe a person searching; it names the search itself. All twelve of its appearances are in poetry, and seven of them are in Job.

A noun like this can face two ways. It can name the activity and its findings: what an earlier generation looked into and learned, or the churning of a group that cannot make up its mind. It can also slide across to name what the activity is reaching for, the far bottom of a thing. When Job is asked whether he has walked in the recesses of the deep, "recesses" is this word: the part of the sea that a search would have to get down to.

That second move is what made the word famous. Six of the twelve uses, and probably a seventh, are a flat denial, "there is no searching out of it," which is this language's way of saying that a subject has no floor for a searcher to reach. It is said of:

  • the great things God does, which nobody can trace to the end
  • the greatness of the LORD himself
  • his understanding, which never tires and never runs short
  • the sheer number of his years
  • and once, drily, the mind of a king

English almost always folds that whole phrase into one adjective, "unsearchable" or "unfathomable," so the noun vanishes from the translation even though it is what drives the sentence.

Nuances

1aan inquiry into something: the work of looking into a matter until you reach the bottom of it, and the findings that work turns up
TranslatabilityApproximate
Job 8:8Job 34:24Pro 25:27
1bin the phrase "searchings of heart": the inward wrestling a hard choice stirs up, when people keep turning the same question over
TranslatabilityApproximate
Jdg 5:16
1cthe farthest reach of something: the hidden bottom or full extent that a search sets out to find
Job 11:7Job 38:16
1din the phrase "there is no searching out": past all finding out, with no bottom a searcher can ever reach
Job 5:9Job 9:10Job 36:26Psa 145:3Pro 25:3Isa 40:28

What scholars say about ḥeqer

The standard lexica treat חֵקֶר as a verbal noun of חקר, with a range running from the act of investigation and its results (Job 8:8; Judges 5:16, the phrase חִקְרֵי לֵב) to the object or terminus of investigation (Job 38:16, בְּחֵקֶר תְּהוֹם; Job 11:7, in parallel with תַּכְלִית). BDB, HALOT and DCH all give separate treatment to the negated existential אֵין חֵקֶר / לֹא חֵקֶר, which accounts for six or seven of the twelve occurrences and functions adjectivally: it is predicated of God's works (Job 5:9; 9:10), his greatness (Psalm 145:3), his understanding (Isaiah 40:28) and the number of his years (Job 36:26), and once by analogy of the mind of a king (Proverbs 25:3). Wagner's TDOT article situates the noun within the root's wisdom vocabulary, where investigation is a legitimate and even royal activity (Proverbs 25:2) whose limit is reached only at the being of God. Two lines resist settled construal. In Job 34:24 לֹא חֵקֶר is usually taken adverbially, "without inquiry," although the identical phrase in Job 36:26 means "beyond fathoming." Proverbs 25:27b, וְחֵקֶר כְּבֹדָם כָּבוֹד, is syntactically and probably textually damaged: the common solution extends the negation of the first colon into the second, some read the colon positively against 25:2, and others emend; Fox regards the line as unresolved. Judges 5:16 חִקְרֵי לֵב stands beside חִקְקֵי לֵב in 5:15, and the relation of the two forms is disputed. The noun is absent from Biblical Aramaic. The Septuagint renders the negated phrase in Job with ἀνεξιχνίαστος (Job 5:9; 9:10), the adjective Paul uses at Romans 11:33 alongside ἀνεξεραύνητος and again at Ephesians 3:8, which is why those two Greek adjectives, rather than any Greek verb of searching, are the nearest New Testament counterparts.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), s.v. חֵקֶרlexicon
  • 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. חֵקֶרlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993-2011), s.v. חֵקֶרlexicon
  • S. Wagner, 'חקר ḥāqar,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 148-150theological-dictionary
  • John E. Hartley, The Book of Job, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), on 5:9, 11:7 and 36:26commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 38-42, WBC 18B (Nashville: Nelson, 2011), on 38:16commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, WBC 18A (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), on 34:24commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, AYB 18B (New Haven: Yale, 2009), on 25:2, 25:3 and 25:27commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), on 25:27commentary
  • John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), on 40:28commentary
  • Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), on 5:15-16commentary

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

All attested forms of חֵקֶר

m s absolute

חֵקֶר

Job 5:9, Job 9:10, Job 34:24, Job 36:26, Psa 145:3, Pro 25:3, Isa 40:28

m s construct

חֵקֶר

Job 8:8, Job 11:7, Job 38:16, Pro 25:27

m p construct

חִקְרֵי

Jdg 5:16