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migrash

מִגְרָשׁ

HebrewH4054suburbs, pasture lands, ...

Appears 119 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Lev 25:34Num 35:2Num 35:3Num 35:4Num 35:5Num 35:7Jos 14:4Jos 21:2Jos 21:3Jos 21:8Jos 21:11Jos 21:13 (2×)Jos 21:14 (2×)Jos 21:15 (2×)Jos 21:16 (3×)Jos 21:17 (2×)Jos 21:19Jos 21:26Jos 21:33Jos 21:41Jos 21:421Ch 5:161Ch 6:55(40)1Ch 6:57(42) (2×)1Ch 6:58(43) (2×)1Ch 6:59(44) (3×)1Ch 6:60(45) (3×)1Ch 6:64(49)1Ch 13:22Ch 11:142Ch 31:19Ezk 27:28Ezk 36:5Ezk 45:2Ezk 48:15Ezk 48:17
Root family
Word studymig-RASHnoun

What migrash means

the open belt of land that rings a town: its commons for grazing, kept free of building

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

Migrash is the ring of open ground that surrounds a settlement. It is the land just outside the wall, left unbuilt and unfarmed so the townspeople could pasture their flocks and herds there, store goods, and have room to breathe. The word almost always travels in a fixed pair with "cities": the towns and their open land, the built place and the green belt around it.

The heart of the word is the law that gave the Levites no tribal territory of their own but assigned them towns scattered through Israel, each town wrapped in this open commons. Numbers 35 even measures the belt out, a fixed distance running out from the wall on every side, and the long town lists of Joshua 21 and 1 Chronicles 6 repeat the phrase town after town like a refrain. So the word carries a settled, legal flavor: it names a defined zone with a defined purpose, not just any empty field.

The same picture stretches naturally to the open space ringing other built things. Ezekiel measures a margin of open ground around the future temple and around the holy city the same way Numbers measured it around a Levitical town. The constant is the shape: a girdle of cleared, common land hugging something built.

Lev 25:34Num 35:2Num 35:3Num 35:4Num 35:5Num 35:7Jos 14:4Jos 21:2Jos 21:3Jos 21:8Jos 21:11Jos 21:13 (2×)

What scholars say about migrash

The standard lexica treat מִגְרָשׁ as a single noun meaning the open, unbuilt land around a town, used chiefly as a pasture commons, derived from the verb meaning to drive out (the place to which flocks are driven). BDB and HALOT give "common land, open land" around a city; DCH catalogs the heavy clustering in the Levitical-city material of Numbers 35, Joshua 21, and 1 Chronicles 6. Studies of the Levitical cities (e.g. work building on the analysis in TDOT and in commentaries on Numbers and Joshua) note the precise measurements in Numbers 35:4-5 and the legal, inalienable status of this land in Leviticus 25:34. Ezekiel's use for the margin around the temple and the holy city is widely read as the same spatial idea extended. The feminine plural in Ezekiel 27:28 is recognized as a textual and lexical crux.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. מִגְרָשׁlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. מִגְרָשׁlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. מִגְרָשׁlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. גרשׁ / מִגְרָשׁtheological-dictionary

All attested forms of מִגְרָשׁ

m p construct

מִגְרָשֶׁהָ, מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ

Jos 21:11, Jos 21:13, Jos 21:13, Jos 21:14, Jos 21:14, Jos 21:15, Jos 21:15, Jos 21:16

m p construct

מִגְרְשֵׁיהֶן

Num 35:7, Jos 21:2, Jos 21:3, Jos 21:8, Jos 21:19, Jos 21:26, Jos 21:33, Jos 21:41

m p construct

מִגְרְשֵׁיהֶם

Num 35:3, Jos 14:4, 1Ch 6:64, 1Ch 13:2, 2Ch 11:14

m s absolute

מִגְרָשׁ

Num 35:2, Ezk 45:2, Ezk 48:15, Ezk 48:17

m p construct

מִגְרְשֵׁי

Num 35:4, Num 35:5, 1Ch 5:16

m s construct

מִגְרַשׁ

Lev 25:34, 2Ch 31:19

f p absolute

מִגְרֹשׁוֹת

Ezk 27:28

m s construct

מִגְרָשָׁהּ

Ezk 36:5