מוּר
to change
‘to change’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hiphil verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘change’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 6 times (40%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Absolute 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Infinitive Construct 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (7%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Jussive, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (7%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 15 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4171 appears — 10 distinct verses across 6 books. 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 2 verses
- Leviticus 27:10 יָמִ֥יר הָמֵ֨ר יָמִ֤יר Hiphil impf 3ms Hiphil inf.abs Hiphil impf 3ms He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good: and if he shall at all change animal for animal, then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy.
- Leviticus 27:33 יְמִירֶ֑/נּוּ הָמֵ֣ר יְמִירֶ֔/נּוּ Hiphil impf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms Hiphil inf.abs Hiphil impf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms He shall not search whether it is good or bad, neither shall he change it: and if he changes it at all, then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed.'"
Psalms 3 verses
- Psalms 15:4 יָמִֽר Hiphil impf 3ms In whose eyes a vile man is despised, But who honors those who fear Yahweh; He who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn't change;
- Psalms 46:2 בְּ/הָמִ֣יר prep + Hiphil inf.cs Therefore we won't be afraid, though the earth changes, Though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas;
- Psalms 106:20 וַ/יָּמִ֥ירוּ conj + Hiphil wimpf 3mp Thus they exchanged their glory For an image of a bull that eats grass.
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 2:11 הַ/הֵימִ֥יר הֵמִ֥יר ptcl inter + Hiphil pf 3ms Hiphil pf 3ms Has a nation changed [its] gods, which yet are no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
- Jeremiah 48:11 נָמָֽר Niphal pf 3ms Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed.
Ezekiel 1 verse
Hosea 1 verse
Micah 1 verse
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.
מור — transliterated mûwr — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to change.” It first appears in Leviticus 27:10. With 10 verses in 6 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Psalms (30% of all occurrences). The verb spans 3 stems, from Niphal to Hiphil. See the sense tree, 10-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4171 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,836
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,836 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 30%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 20%
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: Change 2×
- American Standard Version: It 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: They exchanged 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: He shall 2×, Substituting 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4171 across 14 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4171 across 14 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4171 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4171 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Hophal (the passive of Hiphil).
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 5 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
Niphal
- Pf. נָמָ֑ר (as if from מרר) be changed, Je 48:11 subj. רֵיחוֹ (of wine, fig. of Moab); e.g. Jeremiah 48:11
Hiphil
- Pf. הֵמִיר Je 2:11; on הַהֵימִיר ib., v. Köi. 457; Impf. יָמִיר ψ 15:4 + 3 times; juss. יָמֵר Ez 48:14; sf. יְמִירֶנּוּ Lv 27:33(×2); אָמִיר Ho 4:7; וַיָּמִ֫ירוּ ψ 106:20; Inf. cstr. הָמִיר ψ 46:3; abs. הָמֵר Lv 27:10, 33;— e.g. Jeremiah 2:11
- 1. change, alter, Mi 2:4 (obj. חֵלֶק עַמִּי; but 𝔊 יִמַּד בַּחֶבֶל, so Sta ZAW 1886, 122 f.); ψ 15:4 (no obj. expr.); Hiph. declar. 46:3 (ארץ subj., Hup Che Bae al., Ges§ 115, 2, R. 2) when the earth shews change; Krochm Gr proposes הִמּוֹג (cf. מוג v 7b ‖ מוט), but needless. e.g. Micah 2:4
- 2. exchange (sq. acc. of obj. relinquished, + בְּ before obj. acquired) Lv 27:10(×4) (2 times as Inf. abs.); Ho 4:7 ψ 106:20; cf. c. one obj. Lv 27:33(×3) (once as Inf. abs.); Je 2:11(×2) (cf. supr.); without obj. Ez 48:14 (but Ew Co יוּמַר, Hoph.). e.g. Leviticus 27:10
Hophal
- Impf. יוּמַר Ez 48:14 Ew Co, cf. Berthol. e.g. Ezekiel 48:14
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
vb. change (NH id., Hiph.; Arabic مَارَ (med. ו) is move to and fro (intransitive); مَارَ (med. י) procure food, Aramaic ܡܳܪ buy or import food, NöZMG xl. 1886, 154);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
מוּר
- , Hif. הֵמִיר (b. h.;
- 1. to exchange. Snh. 56ᵇ אלהים אני לא תְמִירוּנִי I am God, you shall not exchange me (for another god); a. e.—Esp. (with ref. to Lev. XXVII, 33) to substitute a dedicated sacrifice (by which both become sacred property). Tem. I, 1 הכל מְמִירִים (Bab. ed. מְמִירִין) all persons have power to exchange; לא שאדם רשאי להָמִיר … המיר מוּמָר which means not that one is permitted to exchange, but that if one did, the substitute is sacred. Ib. 2ᵃ יורש אינו מֵמִיר an heir cannot exchange his father’s dedication. Ib. 3ᵃ, a. fr. מְיַמֵּר (Pi. of יָמַר). Ib. I, 1 (7ᵇ) ממירים את שלהם (Talm. ed. בשלהם) can exchange what belongs to them. Ib. הבכור לא יְמִירֶנּוּ בו (Talm. ed. אין ממירין בו) he (the priest) cannot exchange the first-born animal (although it is his as the priest’s share). Ib. 2 ממירים מן הצאן על וכ׳ you can substitute small cattle for large; a. fr.—V. אֵימוּרִים II. e.g. Leviticus 27:33
- 2. to convert. Yalk. Gen. 136 אני מֵמִיר אתכם I shall force you to abjure your religion (Gen. R. s. 82 משמיד); v. מוּמָר.
- to be exchanged, to become sacred (without redeeming the original). Part. מוּמָר. Tem. I, 1; a. fr., v. supra.
מוּר I
- Af. אָמֵיר (Pa. יַמֵּר) same. Tem. 2ᵇ אֲמוּרֵי נמי מֵמִיר he has also the power to exchange (v. preced.). Ib. 10ᵇ אֵימוּרֵי הוא דלא מְיַמֵּר וכ׳ (Rashi אמורי) he has no power to exchange, but to dedicate he has. [B. Mets. 77ᵃ אימר. אימרו, v. מְרִי.—[V. אֲמוּרְיָא.]
מוּר II
- = אֲמַר. Y. Ber. II, 5ᵇ top נפיק ומור he went out and said. Ib. ומוֹר דבתריה (ed. Lehm. ואמור) but say also what follows it.
מוֹר
- myrrh. Ker. 6ᵃ; Y. Yoma IV, 41ᵈ (an ingredient of frankincense). Gen. R. s. 91, end; Yalk. ib. 149 (not מורי), v. אֵיגוֹרִי. Mikv. IX, 5 המ׳ (Var. חֵמָר); Tosef. ib. VI (VII), 16 המ׳ the myrrh-gum. Cant. R. to V, 16; a. fr.—Ib. 13; Sabb. 30ᵇ, v. מַר II.—Pl. מוּרוֹת lumps of gum. Lam. R. to I, 20 (play on חמרמרו ib., as if fr. חֵמָר) עשאן מ׳ מ׳, v. גּוּשׁ II.
מוֹר ²
- Targ. Ex. XXX, 23 (Var. מֻרָּא, מוּרָּא, מֵירָא, v. Berl. Targ. O. II, p. 29). Targ. Prov. VII, 17. Targ. Ps. XLV, 9 מי׳. Targ. II Esth. II, 5 (play on מ̇ר̇ד̇כ̇י̇) מ̇ר̇א ד̇כ̇י̇א ed. Lag. (oth. ed. מי׳).—Ḥull. 139ᵇ (translating מר דרור, Ex. l. c.) מירא דכיא clear (liquid) myrrh; Meg. 10ᵇ מרי דכי (Ms. O. a. L. מירא דכיא, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 20).—Keth. 75ᵃ מוּרָה ומושקין Ar. (missing in ed.) myrrh and musk, v. קִיּוּהָא.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 15 distinct written forms H4171 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H4171, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 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
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.
