אֲחֻזָּה
possession
‘possession’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H272 appears in the Book of Leviticus — 18 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Leviticus
- Leviticus 14:34 לַ/אֲחֻזָּ֑ה אֲחֻזַּתְ/כֶֽם prep + n c fs n c fs cs + sfx pers 2mp "When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put a spreading mildew in a house in the land of your possession,
- Leviticus 25:10 אֲחֻזָּת֔/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
- Leviticus 25:13 אֲחֻזָּתֽ/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms "'In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his property.
- Leviticus 25:24 אֲחֻזַּתְ/כֶ֑ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 2mp In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
- Leviticus 25:25 מֵ/אֲחֻזָּת֑/וֹ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms "'If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that which his brother has sold.
- Leviticus 25:27 לַ/אֲחֻזָּתֽ/וֹ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms then let him reckon the years since the sale of it, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his property.
- Leviticus 25:28 לַ/אֲחֻזָּתֽ/וֹ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms But if he isn't able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee: and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his propery.
- Leviticus 25:32 אֲחֻזָּתָ֑/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp "'Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time.
- Leviticus 25:33 אֲחֻזָּת֖/וֹ אֲחֻזָּתָ֔/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp The Levites may redeem the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, and it shall be released in the Jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
- Leviticus 25:34 אֲחֻזַּ֥ת n c fs cs But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
- Leviticus 25:41 אֲחֻזַּ֥ת n c fs cs then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers.
- Leviticus 25:45 לַֽ/אֲחֻזָּֽה prep + n c fs Moreover of the children of the strangers who sojourn among you, of them you may buy, and of their families who are with you, which they have conceived in your land; and they will be your property.
- Leviticus 25:46 אֲחֻזָּ֔ה n c fs You may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them may you take your slaves forever: but over your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.
- Leviticus 27:16 אֲחֻזָּת֗/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms "'If a man dedicates to Yahweh part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it: the sowing of a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
- Leviticus 27:21 אֲחֻזָּתֽ/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms but the field, when it goes out in the Jubilee, shall be holy to Yahweh, as a field devoted; it shall be owned by the priests.
- Leviticus 27:22 אֲחֻזָּת֑/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms "'If he dedicates to Yahweh a field which he has bought, which is not of the field of his possession,
- Leviticus 27:24 אֲחֻזַּ֥ת n c fs cs In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land belongs.
- Leviticus 27:28 אֲחֻזָּת֔/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms "'Notwithstanding, no devoted thing, that a man shall devote to Yahweh of all that he has, whether of man or animal, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy to Yahweh.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
אחזה (ʼăchuzzâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “possession.” Its English rendering has broadened — “possession” classically, “property” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 58 verses in 10 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Leviticus dominates its distribution — 18 of 58 verses. Its lexical range runs to 3 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H272 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 58
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 58 distinct verses.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #594
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 594 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 58 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 58 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 37 verses · 64%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 15 verses · 26%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 10%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Possession 50×
- American Standard Version: Possession 51×
- Berean Standard Bible: Property 19×, Possession 13×, Own property 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Possession 32×, Property 8×, Possession of 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H272 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H272 across 67 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H272 across 60 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 6 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H272 across 70 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- possession, property
- land
- possession by inheritance
Word origin
n.f. possession—א׳ Gn 47:11 + 11 times; cstr. אֲחֻזַּת Gn 17:8 + 21 times; sf. אֲחֻזָּתְֽךָ ψ 2:8;—possession, P & late; of landed property Gn 47:11 Lv 14:34; 25:10, 13, 25, 27, 28, 33 (houses) 41, 45, 46 Nu 27:4; 32:5, 22, 29; 35:8 Dt 32:49 Jos 21:12, 39 Ez 44:28; 45:5, 6, 7(×2), 8 46:18(×3); 48:20, 21, 22(×2) 1 Ch 7:28; 9:2 2 Ch 11:14; 31:1 Ne 11:3; c. אֶרֶץ, א׳ אֲחֻזָּה = land possessed, one’s own land Gn 36:43 Lv 14:34; 25:24 Nu 35:28 Jos 22:4, 9, 19(×2), cf. אֲחֻזַּת הָאָרֶץ Lv 27:24; c. שָׂדֶה, שׂ׳ אֲחֻזָּה Lv 27:16, 22, 28, cf. v 21; c. עִור, ע׳ אֲחֻזָּה Lv 25:32, 33; אֲחֻזַּת נַחֲלָה = possession by right of inheritance Nu 27:7; 32:32, & נַחֲלַת א׳ 35:2 cf. א׳ בְּנַחֲלָה Ez 46:16 (but Co as Nu 27:7 so B); אֲחֻזַּת קֶבֶר Gn 23:4, 9, 20; 49:30; 50:13; א׳ עוֹלָם Gn 17:8; 48:4 Lv 25:34; in promise to Davidic king וַאֲחֻזָּתְֽךָ אַסְפֵי־אָרֶץ ψ 2:8 (‖ נַחֲלָה); fig. of י׳ as portion of Levit. priests Ez 44:28 (‖ נַחֲלָה).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אחז (ʼâchaz) (H270) — to grasp.
Forms in the corpus
The 48 distinct written forms H272 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H272, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- אחז ʼÂchâz H271 Ahaz
- אחזי ʼAchzay H273 Ahasai
- אחזיה ʼĂchazyâh H274 Ahaziah
- אחזם ʼĂchuzzâm H275 Ahuzam
- אחזת ʼĂchuzzath H276 Ahuzzath
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 5 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 57 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 58 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 17:8
- Leviticus 14:34
- Numbers 27:4
- Deuteronomy 32:49
- Joshua 21:12
- 1 Chronicles 7:28
- 2 Chronicles 11:14
- Psalms 2:8
- Ezekiel 44:28
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
