נׇכְרִי
nokh.ri (H5237)
foreign
AI Word Study
# The Hebrew Word nokri (H5237): Foreign and Stranger The Hebrew term *nokri* (נׇכְרִי) carries the straightforward meaning of "foreign" or "foreigner," appearing 45 times throughout the biblical text. This word functioned as a basic category marker in ancient Hebrew society, designating persons, objects, or practices that originated outside or belonged to people outside the Israelite community. The frequency of its occurrence—roughly one instance per book of the Hebrew Bible—suggests it addressed a recurring concern in biblical discourse. The 45 occurrences indicate that the concept of "foreign" held sufficient importance to warrant regular articulation in biblical texts. Without access to the specific contexts of each usage, we can infer that the word operated across multiple domains: it could refer to foreign peoples and nations, foreign gods and religious practices, foreign wives or marriages, or foreign lands and territories. The consistency of its usage patterns across 45 biblical passages indicates that distinguishing between what was "Israelite" and what was "foreign" was a meaningful conceptual boundary in the biblical worldview. In practical terms, *nokri* served as a linguistic tool for expressing cultural, religious, and social boundaries. Its presence in the biblical vocabulary reflects the fundamental importance of identity-marking in ancient Israelite society—the need to articulate and maintain distinctions between community members and outsiders, whether those
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money.
She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land.”
and her two sons. The name of one son was Gershom, for Moses said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land”.
If she doesn’t please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.
You shall not eat of anything that dies of itself. You may give it to the foreigner living among you who is within your gates, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Of a foreigner you may require it; but whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall release.
you shall surely set him whom Yahweh your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
You may charge a foreigner interest; but you shall not your brother interest, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land where you go in to possess it.
The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick,
His master said to him, “We won’t enter into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel; but we will pass over to Gibeah.”
Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take knowledge of me, since I am a foreigner?”
Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why do you also go with us? Return, and stay with the king; for you are a foreigner, and also an exile. Return to your own place.
“Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he comes out of a far country for your name’s sake
hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.
Now king Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites;
So he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
“Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he comes from a far country for your great name’s sake, and your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm; when they come and pray toward this house;
then hear from heaven, even from your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.
Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, “We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.
Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed, and have married foreign women, to increase the guilt of Israel.
Now therefore make confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the foreign women.”
Now let our princes be appointed for all the assembly, and let all those who are in our cities who have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and its judges, until the fierce wrath of our God is turned from us, until this matter is resolved.”
They finished with all the men who had married foreign women by the first day of the first month.
Among the sons of the priests there were found who had married foreign women: of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and his brothers, Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah.
All these had taken foreign wives; and some of them had wives by whom they had children.
Didn’t Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin.
Shall we then listen to you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God in marrying foreign women?”
Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children.
to deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words,
lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich another man’s house.
For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?
to keep you from the immoral woman, from the flattery of the wayward wife’s tongue.
that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.
Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman.
For a prostitute is a deep pit; and a wayward wife is a narrow well.
Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.
Take his garment when he puts up collateral for a stranger. Hold it for a wayward woman!
a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled from the east, with those who practice divination like the Philistines, and they clasp hands with the children of foreigners.
For Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act.
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.
In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.
It will happen in the day of Yahweh’s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, the king’s sons, and all those who are clothed with foreign clothing.