To sell , literally (as merchandise, a daughter in marriage, into slavery), or figuratively (to surrender )
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H4376, mākar, is a Hebrew verb for selling or transferring something for payment, and in some settings for surrendering a person or people into another's power. Its objects include a birthright, land, houses, food, oil, animals, labor, and human beings.
Reader summary
Full entry for מָכַר (H4376) · Open the biblical lexicon
H4376, mākar, is a Hebrew verb for selling or transferring something for payment, and in some settings for surrendering a person or people into another's power. Its objects include a birthright, land, houses, food, oil, animals, labor, and human beings.
The BSB source-word alignment has 80 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sell (4), you sold (4), and sold (3), sold (3), and He sold them (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 25:31. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (16), Genesis (10), Deuteronomy (7), Nehemiah (7).
H4376, mākar, is a Hebrew verb for selling or transferring something for payment, and in some settings for surrendering a person or people into another's power. Its objects include a birthright, land, houses, food, oil, animals, labor, and human beings. The grammar alone does not decide whether a transaction is ordinary commerce, a constrained response to poverty, criminal trafficking, debt servitude, judicial loss, or prophetic imagery. Readers must identify who acts, who benefits, what is transferred, what freedom remains, and what covenant law says about the act.
The Torah places moral boundaries around transactions. Leviticus forbids taking advantage in a sale, declares that Israel's land cannot be alienated permanently because it belongs to the Lord, and restricts the treatment of an impoverished Israelite who sells his labor. Exodus and Deuteronomy command death for kidnapping and selling a person. Those texts condemn human trafficking; they must not be recruited to legitimize racialized chattel slavery, coercive labor, or ownership of another person's body. Debt and poverty may explain why a person enters service, but vulnerability never grants a buyer unlimited moral authority.
Narratives and prophets expose further dimensions. Joseph's brothers sell him, yet God's later providence neither makes their violence good nor cancels Joseph's wounds. Judges says the Lord sold covenant-breaking Israel into enemy hands, language of judicial surrender rather than divine approval of enslavement. Amos condemns those who sell the righteous and needy, Isaiah announces redemption for a people sold for nothing, and Nehemiah confronts Jews selling their own kin during economic crisis. Faithful pastoral use names exploitation truthfully, protects survivors, pursues restitution and accountable systems, and refuses to spiritualize away material coercion.
H4376 moves from ordinary exchange to coerced human transfer, debt service, covenant judgment, prophetic indictment, and promised redemption, requiring close attention to agency and power in each passage.
“Swear to me first,” Jacob said. So Esau swore to Jacob and sold him the birthright.
Esau transfers his birthright under immediate hunger while Jacob presses his advantage. The sale is legally narrated without making the brothers' motives or power imbalance exemplary.
Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And they agreed.
Judah presents sale as an alternative to murder, but the reduced violence is still betrayal, trafficking, and the removal of Joseph's freedom. A lesser evil does not become a righteous act.
And now, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me into this place, because it was to save lives that God sent me before you.
Joseph names both the brothers' sale and God's saving purpose. Providence works through and beyond human evil without changing the sale into obedience or requiring survivors to minimize harm.
Whoever kidnaps another man must be put to death, whether he sells him or the man is found in his possession.
Kidnapping, sale, and possession of the abducted person all fall under the prohibition. The law directly opposes trafficking and removes any moral shelter for a downstream buyer.
If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other.
Covenant commerce is governed by neighbor-love and protection from exploitation. A technically valid price or contract does not excuse taking advantage of need or unequal information.
The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me.
The Lord's ownership limits permanent alienation of family land. Economic arrangements remain accountable to divine ownership and the restoration pattern of the Jubilee chapter.
If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.
Destitution creates a constrained labor arrangement, and the law limits the purchaser's treatment of the neighbor. Poverty is not permission to erase kinship, dignity, or release.
If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you.
Deuteronomy calls abduction for enslavement or sale an evil to be removed from the community. Application must oppose modern trafficking, forced labor, and complicity in exploitative supply chains.
Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.
The covenant-history summary uses sale as judicial surrender to hostile power. It does not bless the enemies' cruelty or authorize human beings to enslave those they judge.
She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live on the remainder.”
The widow sells a divinely supplied commodity so debt can be paid and her household can live. The story addresses economic rescue after a creditor threatened to take her sons.
For this is what the Lord says: “You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed.”
Isaiah contrasts the people's humiliating surrender with God's free act of redemption. The commercial image serves covenant restoration rather than suggesting that oppressors held rightful title to persons.
This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
Amos treats the commodification of innocent and poor people as grounds for judgment. Worship and prosperity cannot compensate for a system that converts need into profit.
And said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.
Nehemiah exposes the contradiction between redeeming kin from outsiders and exploiting them at home. Reform includes returning fields, canceling harmful interest, and changing elite practice.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Ranges from commercial transaction to coercive surrender; sold persons (daughters, slaves) emphasize vulnerability and loss of agency.
Ranges from commercial transaction to coercive surrender; sold persons (daughters, slaves) emphasize vulnerability and loss of agency.
to sell, literally (as merchandise, a daughter in marriage, into slavery), or figuratively (to surrender) BDB: sell Usage: × at all, sell (away, -er, self).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 80 lexical occurrence verses.
מָכַר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H4376 reveals that Scripture does not treat markets as morally self-validating. A birthright can be transferred through opportunism, land remains under the Lord's ownership, neighbors may not exploit one another in sales, and destitute workers retain covenant protections. Most sharply, kidnapping a person for possession or sale is a capital evil. Joseph's story holds human crime and divine providence together without calling the crime good, while Amos and Nehemiah confront societies that profit from the needy and sell their own kin.
Isaiah's promise of redemption declares that oppressive possession is not ultimate. Churches should therefore resist trafficking and forced labor, scrutinize predatory contracts and supply chains, protect those under debt pressure, believe survivors, and pursue restitution. Redemption is not an excuse to conceal coercion; it creates a people who refuse to make merchandise of neighbors.
Exod.21.16
H4376 is a verb appearing primarily in Qal forms for selling, with passive or reflexive forms describing being sold or selling oneself under pressure. Its semantic range includes goods, real property, inherited rights, labor, animals, and persons, as well as figurative surrender to enemies or wrongdoing. The object and social setting determine the moral stakes; the verb itself does not make the transaction voluntary or just.
The New Testament continues sale language in property transactions, parables, voluntary provision for the needy, and Paul's description of bondage to sin. Jesus' mission is announced as good news and release rather than the purchase of permission to exploit. Canonical connections must preserve the concrete anti-trafficking force of Torah and the prophets even when sale becomes a metaphor for spiritual bondage.