StrongerBible

moḥorat

מׇחֳרָת

HebrewH4283the next day, the morrow, ...

Appears 32 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 19:34Exo 9:6Exo 18:13Exo 32:6Exo 32:30Lev 7:16Lev 19:6Lev 23:11Lev 23:15Lev 23:16Num 11:32Num 16:41(17:6)Num 17:8(23)Num 33:3Jos 5:11Jos 5:12Jdg 6:381Sa 20:271Sa 30:171Ch 29:21
Root family
Word studymo-kho-RAHTnoun

What moḥorat means

the next day: the day immediately following a stated point in time

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This word names one particular day, the one that comes right after a day already fixed in the story. It is not a free-floating "tomorrow" but a relative marker: the morning after the feast, the day after the battle, the next day following the sabbath. Because of that, it almost always shows up as a time-stamp inside a narrative, usually in a set phrase like "on the next day" or "the day after."

The underlying idea is simple and steady across the Hebrew Bible: whatever just happened, this points to what came the following day. Sometimes that is a happy sequel (Israel eats the produce of the land the day after the Passover), and sometimes a grim one (Saul's body is found the day after the fighting), but the meaning of the word itself does not change. It simply carries the reader forward by one day.

Because it is fixed to a reference point, it works differently from the ordinary word for "tomorrow." "Tomorrow" is measured from where the speaker stands now; this word is measured from an event the text has already described. That is why it reads so naturally as a storyteller's phrase, moving the account from one day to the next.

Gen 19:34Exo 9:6Exo 18:13Exo 32:6Exo 32:30Lev 7:16Lev 19:6Lev 23:11Lev 23:15Lev 23:16Num 11:32Num 16:41(17:6)

What scholars say about moḥorat

The lexica treat the word as a feminine formation built on מָחָר "tomorrow," functioning as a noun "the following day" and appearing almost exclusively in prepositional time phrases, chiefly מִמָּחֳרָת "on the next day" and less often בְּמָחֳרָת. HALOT and BDB agree on a single sense, "the morrow, the day after," with no live semantic dispute; the entry's interest is grammatical (its adverbial-accusative and prepositional use as a temporal marker) rather than lexical.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. מָחֳרָתlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. מָחֳרָתlexicon
  • TWOT, §1185b (מָחֳרָת)theological-dictionary

All attested forms of מׇחֳרָת

f s absolute

מָּחֳרָת

Gen 19:34, Exo 9:6, Exo 18:13, Exo 32:6, Exo 32:30, Lev 7:16, Lev 19:6, Num 11:32

f s construct

מָּחֳרַת, מָחֳרַת

Lev 23:11, Lev 23:15, Lev 23:16, Num 33:3, Jos 5:11, 1Sa 20:27, 1Ch 29:21

f s construct

מָחֳרָתָם

1Sa 30:17