מִקְרֶה
chance
also: accident, happening, fortune fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-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
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 8 times (80%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 2 times (20%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H4745 appears — 8 distinct verses across 3 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.
Ruth 1 verse
1 Samuel 2 verses
- 1 Samuel 6:9 מִקְרֶ֥ה n c ms Behold; if it goes up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, then he has done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it was a chance that happened to us."
- 1 Samuel 20:26 מִקְרֶ֣ה n c ms Nevertheless Saul didn't say anything that day: for he thought, Something has happened to him. He is not clean. Surely he is not clean.
Ecclesiastes 5 verses
- Ecclesiastes 2:14 שֶׁ/מִּקְרֶ֥ה ptcl rel + n c ms The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness--and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.
- Ecclesiastes 2:15 כְּ/מִקְרֵ֤ה prep + n c ms cs Then said I in my heart, "As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?" Then said I in my heart that this also is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 3:19 מִקְרֶ֨ה וּ/מִקְרֶ֣ה וּ/מִקְרֶ֤ה n c ms conj + n c ms conj + n c ms For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals: for all is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 9:2 מִקְרֶ֨ה n c ms All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn't sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath.
- Ecclesiastes 9:3 מִקְרֶ֥ה n c ms This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
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.
“chance” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun מקרה (miqreh). It clusters heavily in Ecclesiastes, which alone accounts for 63% of its uses. With 8 verses in 3 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Ruth 2:3. Not a single-sense word: its full sense range also takes in “accident”, “happening”, and “fortune”. See the sense tree, 8-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4745 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ecclesiastes 5 verses 63%
- 1 Samuel 2 verses 25%
- Ruth 1 verse 13%
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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 75%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 25%
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: Befalleth 3×, Event 3×
- American Standard Version: Befalleth 3×, Event 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Fate 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Happening 4×, Happening of 3×, Chance 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4745 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H4745 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H4745 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H4745 across 13 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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
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 2 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.
- 1. accident, chance, 1 S 6:9; 20:26; c. קָרָה Ru 2:3 (v. ק׳ 1). e.g. 1 Samuel 6:9
- 2. in Ec, fortune, fate, מ׳ אֶחָד יִקְרֶה אֶת־כֻּלָּם Ec 2:14 cf. v 15, 3:19(×3); 9:2, 3. e.g. Ecclesiastes 2:14
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
n.m. 1 S 6:9 accident, chance, fortune;—abs. מ׳ 1 S 6:9 +; cstr. מִקְרֵה Ec 2:15 (so read also 3:19(×2) with 𝔊 RuëtKau Wild, for MT מִקְרֶה);—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from קרה (qârâh) (H7136) — to meet.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms H4745 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| מִקְרֶ֥ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 9:3 | 2 |
| מִקְרֶ֨ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 3:19 | 2 |
| וּ/מִקְרֶ֣ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 3:19 | 1 |
| וּ/מִקְרֶ֤ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 3:19 | 1 |
| כְּ/מִקְרֵ֤ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ecclesiastes 2:15 | 1 |
| מִקְרֶ֔/הָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Ruth 2:3 | 1 |
| מִקְרֶ֣ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Samuel 20:26 | 1 |
| שֶׁ/מִּקְרֶ֥ה | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Ecclesiastes 2:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4745, 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
Shares the same root
- מקרה mᵉqâreh H4746 beam work
- קרה qâreh H7137 chance
- קרי qᵉrîy H7147 opposition
- קריה qiryâh H7151 city
- קרת qereth H7176 city
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
