מְרָרִי
Merari
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Merari’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H4847 appears — 38 distinct verses across 7 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.
Genesis 1 verse
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 6:16 וּ/מְרָרִ֑י conj + n Proper These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi were one hundred thirty-seven years.
- Exodus 6:19 מְרָרִ֖י n Proper The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their generations.
Numbers 12 verses
- Numbers 3:17 וּ/מְרָרִֽי conj + n Proper These were the sons of Levi by their names: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari.
- Numbers 3:20 מְרָרִ֛י n Proper The sons of Merari by their families: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their fathers' houses.
- Numbers 3:33 לִ/מְרָרִ֕י מְרָרִֽי prep + n Proper n Proper Of Merari was the family of the Mahlites, and the family of the Mushites. These are the families of Merari.
- Numbers 3:35 מְרָרִ֔י n Proper The prince of the fathers' house of the families of Merari was Zuriel the son of Abihail. They shall encamp on the north side of the tabernacle.
- Numbers 3:36 מְרָרִי֒ n Proper The appointed charge of the sons of Merari shall be the tabernacle's boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets, all its instruments, all its service,
- Numbers 4:29 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper "As for the sons of Merari, you shall number them by their families, by their fathers' houses;
- Numbers 4:33 מְרָרִ֔י n Proper This is the service of the families of the sons of Merari, according to all their service, in the Tent of Meeting, under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest."
- Numbers 4:42 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper Those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
- Numbers 4:45 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper These are those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, whom Moses and Aaron numbered according to the commandment of Yahweh by Moses.
- Numbers 7:8 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper and he gave four wagons and eight oxen to the sons of Merari, according to their service, under the direction of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest.
- Numbers 10:17 מְרָרִ֔י n Proper The tent was taken down; and the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari, who bore the tent, set forward.
- Numbers 26:57 לִ/מְרָרִ֕י prep + n Proper These are those who were numbered of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; of Merari, the family of the Merarites.
Joshua 3 verses
- Joshua 21:7 מְרָרִ֜י n Proper The children of Merari according to their families had out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities.
- Joshua 21:34 מְרָרִי֮ n Proper To the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its suburbs, and Kartah with its suburbs,
- Joshua 21:40 מְרָרִי֙ n Proper All [these were] the cities of the children of Merari according to their families, even the rest of the families of the Levites; and their lot was twelve cities.
1 Chronicles 17 verses
- 1 Chronicles 6:1 וּ/מְרָרִֽי conj + n Proper The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
- 1 Chronicles 6:16 וּ/מְרָרִֽי conj + n Proper The sons of Levi: Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.
- 1 Chronicles 6:19 מְרָרִ֖י n Proper The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their fathers' [houses].
- 1 Chronicles 6:29 מְרָרִ֖י n Proper The sons of Merari: Mahli, Libni his son, Shimei his son, Uzzah his son,
- 1 Chronicles 6:44 מְרָרִ֛י n Proper On the left hand their brothers the sons of Merari: Ethan the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch,
- 1 Chronicles 6:47 מְרָרִ֖י n Proper the son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.
- 1 Chronicles 6:63 מְרָרִ֜י n Proper To the sons of Merari [were given] by lot, according to their families, out of the tribe of Reuben, and out of the tribe of Gad, and out of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve cities.
- 1 Chronicles 6:77 מְרָרִי֮ n Proper To the rest of [the Levites], the sons of Merari, [were given], out of the tribe of Zebulun, Rimmono with its suburbs, Tabor with its suburbs;
- 1 Chronicles 9:14 מְרָרִֽי n Proper Of the Levites: Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, of the sons of Merari;
- 1 Chronicles 15:6 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper of the sons of Merari, Asaiah the chief, and his brothers two hundred twenty;
- 1 Chronicles 15:17 מְרָרִי֙ n Proper So the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel; and of his brothers, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brothers, Ethan the son of Kushaiah;
- 1 Chronicles 23:6 וּ/מְרָרִֽי conj + n Proper David divided them into divisions according to the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
- 1 Chronicles 23:21 מְרָרִי֙ n Proper The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish.
- 1 Chronicles 24:26 מְרָרִי֙ n Proper The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi; the sons of Jaaziah: Beno.
- 1 Chronicles 24:27 מְרָרִ֑י n Proper The sons of Merari: of Jaaziah, Beno, and Shoham, and Zaccur, and Ibri.
- 1 Chronicles 26:10 מְרָרִ֖י n Proper Also Hosah, of the children of Merari, had sons: Shimri the chief, (for though he was not the firstborn, yet his father made him chief),
- 1 Chronicles 26:19 מְרָרִֽי n Proper These were the divisions of the doorkeepers; of the sons of the Korahites, and of the sons of Merari.
2 Chronicles 2 verses
- 2 Chronicles 29:12 מְרָרִ֔י n Proper Then the Levites arose, Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah;
- 2 Chronicles 34:12 מְרָרִ֔י n Proper The men did the work faithfully: and the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward; and [others of] the Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music.
Ezra 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.
“Merari” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name מררי (Mᵉrârîy). First canonically at Genesis 46:11, it enters the text early. It turns up in 38 verses across 7 books, a moderately common footprint. It concentrates in 1 Chronicles, which alone accounts for 45% of its uses. See 38-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4847 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 →
- 38
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 38 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #922
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 922 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 38 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 17 verses 45%
- Numbers 12 verses 32%
- Joshua 3 verses 8%
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 38 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 20 verses · 53%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 15 verses · 39%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 8%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Merari 39×
- American Standard Version†: Merari 38×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Merari 24×, Merarite 2×, Merarites 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Merari 39×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4847 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4847 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4847 across 28† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 8 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4847 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 0 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.
מררי I m. a son of Levi, and head of a chief Levit. family
מררי II of above, only c. art. as subst. coll. הַמּ׳ Nu 26
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
I. n.pr.m. a son of Levi, and head of a chief Levit. family: 𝔊 Μεραρ(ε)ι, Μαραρει;—Gn 46:11; Ex 6:16, 19; Nu 3:17, 20, 33(×2), 35, 36; 4:29, 33, 42, 45; 7:8; 10:17; 26:57; Jos 21:7, 34, 38 (all P), 1 Ch 5:27; 6:1, 4, 14, 29, 32, 48, 62; 9:14; 15:6, 17; 23:6, 21; 24:26, 27; 26:10, 19; 2 Ch 29:12; 34:12; Ezr 8:19.
II. adj.gent. of above, only c. art. as subst. coll. הַמּ׳ Nu 26:57.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מרר (mârar) (H4843) — to be bitter.
Forms in the corpus
The 12 distinct written forms H4847 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| מְרָרִ֑י | Noun, Proper | Ezra 8:19 | 7 |
| וּ/מְרָרִֽי | Noun, Proper | Genesis 46:11 | 5 |
| מְרָרִ֔י | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 29:12 | 5 |
| מְרָרִ֖י | Noun, Proper | Exodus 6:19 | 5 |
| מְרָרִי֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 15:17 | 4 |
| מְרָרִֽי | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 9:14 | 3 |
| לִ/מְרָרִ֕י | Noun, Proper | Numbers 3:33 | 2 |
| מְרָרִ֛י | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 6:44 | 2 |
| מְרָרִ֜י | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 6:63 | 2 |
| מְרָרִי֮ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 6:77 | 2 |
| וּ/מְרָרִ֑י | Noun, Proper | Exodus 6:16 | 1 |
| מְרָרִי֒ | Noun, Proper | Numbers 3:36 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4847, 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
- ממרר mamrôr H4472 bitterness
- מר mar H4751 bitter
- מר mar H4752 drop
- מר môr H4753 myrrh
- מרה môrâh H4786 bitterness
- מרירות mᵉrîyrûwth H4814 bitterness
- מרירי mᵉrîyrîy H4815 bitter
- מרר mᵉrôr H4844 bitter herb
- מררה mᵉrêrâh H4845 gall
- מררה mᵉrôrâh H4846 poison
- תמרור tamrûwr H8563 bitterness
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 14 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Merari). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Sad; bitter, the youngest son of Levi, born before the descent of Jacob into Egypt, and one of the seventy who accompanied him thither (Gen. 46:11; Ex. 6:16). He became the head of one of the great divisions of the Levites (Ex. 6:19). (See MERARITES.)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
bitter; to provoke
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 38 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.
