something sold: the property or goods that pass out of one person's hands in a sale, and by extension the sale itself and the money it brings.
This is the noun that belongs with the verb "to sell" (מָכַר), and it never settles on one fixed sense. Depending on the sentence it names the thing that was sold, the sale itself, the money the sale brought in, or goods laid out for sale. What holds all of that together is one event seen from different angles: something has passed out of one person's hands into another's for a price.
Seven of its ten uses sit in a single chapter, the release laws of Leviticus 25, and that setting shapes the word. Family land there could not be signed away for good, because the land belonged to God and the families who held it were tenants on it. What looked like a sale was really the handing over of a set number of harvests, which a relative could buy back and which returned to the original family in the year of release. The price was worked out by counting the years still left. That is why the same word can slide between the field, the deal, and the sum paid: in this system the three are facets of one time-limited arrangement.
The range is easiest to see verse by verse:
- in most of Leviticus 25 it is the land or house a family had to give up
- in one verse it is the money that the sale of a person's labor brought in
- in Nehemiah it is ordinary merchandise carried up to the city to be sold
- in Ezekiel it is sold property that a seller will never live to get back
One verse resists all of this. In Deuteronomy 18:8 a Levite who comes to serve at the central sanctuary is to receive an equal share of the offerings, and then comes a short Hebrew phrase about "his sales" that is one of the hardest in the book. The oldest Greek and Latin translations took it of money from selling family property back home; an old Jewish reading took it instead of the turns of temple duty handed down within priestly families. Modern versions still footnote the phrase as uncertain.
Nuances
What the closing phrase of Deuteronomy 18:8 grants the visiting Levite, and therefore what this noun refers to there. The Hebrew לְבַד מִמְכָּרָיו עַל־הָאָבוֹת is obscure and the ancient versions divide.
- majorityThe plural refers to the proceeds of the Levite's sale of his patrimony at home, which he retains in addition to his equal share of the altar offerings.; Septuagint, Deuteronomy 18:8 (πλὴν τῆς πράσεως τῆς κατὰ πατριάν); Vulgate, Deuteronomy 18:8 (excepto eo quod in urbe sua ex paterna ei successione debetur); S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary), ad loc.; Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996), ad loc.; Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy (Old Testament Library, 2002), ad loc.
- minorityThe plural refers to the priestly service rotations apportioned among the priestly houses by their ancestors, so that the newcomer's equal share stands apart from the revenues attached to those ancestral turns.; Targum Onkelos, Deuteronomy 18:8; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Deuteronomy 18:8; Rashi on Deuteronomy 18:8
Disputed
Whether, in the sale and redemption legislation of Leviticus 25, מִמְכָּר primarily denotes the alienated property itself or the sale transaction and the value computed from it. Individual verses settle individual cases (25:28 is the object, 25:50 is the price), but the default sense of the term in the chapter is disputed.
- contestedThe noun names the alienated holding, the field or house whose usufruct has been transferred until the jubilee; the chapter is land-tenure law, and "the (leased) holding" is the natural rendering in verses 25 to 28.; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27 (Anchor Bible, 2001), on Leviticus 25:25 to 28
- contestedThe lexica's first sense, the act of sale, is the term's default, and the chapter's calculative machinery (counting the years elapsed, refunding the balance, capitalizing the price) keeps the transaction and its value in the foreground.; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. מִמְכָּר; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. מִמְכָּר