StrongerBible

mireh

מִרְעֶה

HebrewH4829pasture, grazing land, ...

Appears 13 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 47:41Ch 4:391Ch 4:401Ch 4:41Job 39:8Isa 32:14Lam 1:6Ezk 34:14 (2×)Ezk 34:18 (2×)Jol 1:18Nam 2:11(12)
Word studymeer-EHnoun

What mireh means

pasture: the open land where a flock is taken to feed, and the grazing it finds there

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary Hebrew word for grazing ground. It is built on the verb for shepherding a flock, so it never means bare land. It means land with something growing on it for animals to eat, and animals being brought there to eat it. Shepherds go out looking for it, settle where they find it, and move on when it fails.

Because the word is tied to feeding, it can point either at the ground or at the food. When a clan searches the hills and finds grazing that is rich and good, the word is plainly a stretch of land. When Jacob's sons tell Pharaoh there is no pasture for their flocks, or a prophet describes cattle milling about in a stripped countryside, the point is that there is nothing left to eat. English keeps a field and its fodder apart; this word does not.

Ezekiel makes the word carry both God's care and its abuse. God promises to feed his flock on good grazing and to settle them in a safe fold (נָוֶה), and then he charges the strong of the flock with eating the best of the grazing and trampling what is left. Since good grazing is exactly what a good shepherd provides, losing it became a standard picture of ruin: a famine that empties Canaan of feed, a proud city left as grazing land for wild donkeys.

Once the word is aimed at predators instead of livestock. Nahum asks where the lions' den has gone, the place where the young lions were fed. The shepherd's word for grazing ground is turned on its head: Nineveh was a pasture, but for lions, and the flock was everyone else.

Nuances

1agrazing land: the open ground where animals are taken to feed
TranslatabilityDirect
1Ch 4:391Ch 4:401Ch 4:41Job 39:8Isa 32:14Ezk 34:14 (2×)Ezk 34:18 (2×)
1bgrazing to be had: the feed animals find on the ground, so that when there is none they go hungry
Gen 47:4Lam 1:6Jol 1:18
1ca feeding ground for beasts of prey rather than for flocks
TranslatabilityPartial
Nam 2:11(12)

What scholars say about mireh

מִרְעֶה is a noun formed with prefixed mem from the root רעה, "to graze, to shepherd," and the standard lexica treat it as a single lexeme glossed "pasture, pasturage" (BDB; HALOT; DCH), with no homonym split. DCH and TWOT both register the term's oscillation between locative reference (the tract of grazing land) and the pasturage or fodder found on it, and that oscillation accounts for the distribution here: descriptive land notices and pastoral oracles (1 Chr 4:39-41; Isa 32:14; Ezek 34:14, 18; Job 39:8) over against the privative famine formula אֵין מִרְעֶה (Gen 47:4; Joel 1:18; Lam 1:6). Ezekiel 34 deploys the term inside the shepherd-ruler imagery common to Israel's royal theology and to its wider ancient Near Eastern setting, pairing מִרְעֶה with נָוֶה so that feeding and repose are held distinct within one oracle (Block, Ezekiel 25-48). Nahum 2:12 in the Hebrew (English 2:11) is text-critically contested: the clause וּמִרְעֶה הוּא לַכְּפִרִים is widely felt to be syntactically rough, and an emendation to a term for cave or lair has been canvassed in the critical apparatus and in the commentaries (Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah); the received text yields a deliberate transfer of pastoral vocabulary to predators, which is how the occurrence is classified here.

Sources

  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מִרְעֶהlexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. מִרְעֶהlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. מִרְעֶהlexicon
  • TWOT (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament), s.v. רָעָהtheological-dictionary
  • TDOT (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament), s.v. רעהtheological-dictionary
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998)commentary
  • J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991)commentary

All attested forms of מִרְעֶה

m s absolute

מִרְעֶה, מִּרְעֶה

Gen 47:4, 1Ch 4:39, 1Ch 4:40, 1Ch 4:41, Lam 1:6, Ezk 34:14, Ezk 34:14, Jol 1:18

m p construct

מִרְעֵיכֶם

Ezk 34:18

m s construct

מִרְעֵה

Isa 32:14

m s construct

מִרְעֵהוּ

Job 39:8