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נׇכְרִי

nchri · foreign, stranger

Hebrew word · Strong’s number H5237 · appears 45 times in the Bible

What is the Strong number?Strong’s number identifies this word: use it to find the same word in other study tools.

What it means

nchri (נׇכְרִי) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “foreign, stranger”.

Foreign, strange; a foreigner, someone outside the family.

How to say it

nchri

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

  1. Someone of another people, or outside the family.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Foreign, strange: one who belongs to another people, passing through and without the rights of a resident; also what is alien or unknown. It is from the root of נָכַר, ‘recognize’ or ‘treat as a stranger’ (H5234).

Historical and cultural background

Deuteronomy distinguishes the foreigner from the brother: “The foreigner you may press; but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release” (15:3), and he could not be king (17:15). Ruth is surprised that Boaz takes notice of her, “when I am a foreigner” (Ruth 2:10).

How we translate it

“Foreign” 24 times, “foreigner” 15, “foreigners” 5. נָכְרִי is distinguished from גֵּר, ‘resident alien’, who lives among Israel with rights. When it is not a people but something strange, “alien” (Isaiah 28:21).

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

  • foreign ×24
  • foreigner ×15
  • foreigners ×5
  • alien is ×1

Related words

Comes from

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

  • Genesis 31:15

    Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he sold us, and he has also completely eaten up our silver.

  • Exodus 2:22

    She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have been a resident alien in a foreign land.”

  • Exodus 18:3

    and her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom, for he said, “I have been a resident alien in a foreign land”;

  • Exodus 21:8

    If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master, who had designated her for himself, he shall let her be ransomed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt treacherously with her.

  • Deuteronomy 14:21

    You shall not eat any carcass; to the resident alien who is within your gates you may give it, and he may eat it, or sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to YHWH your Elohim. You shall not boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.

  • Deuteronomy 15:3

    The foreigner you may press; but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release.

  • Deuteronomy 17:15

    you shall surely set over you a king whom YHWH your Elohim chooses. From among your brothers you shall set over you a king; you may not put over you a foreign man, who is not your brother.

  • Deuteronomy 23:20

    To the foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest, so that YHWH your Elohim may bless you in every undertaking of your hand in the land that you are going into to possess it.

  • Deuteronomy 29:22

    And the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, will say, when they see the blows of that land and its sicknesses with which YHWH has made it sick

  • Judges 19:12

    But his master said to him, “We will not turn aside to a city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel here; we will pass on as far as Gibeah.”

  • Ruth 2:10

    Then she fell on her face and bowed down to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?”

  • 2 Samuel 15:19

    The king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why will you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner, and also an exile you are from your place.

  • 1 Kings 8:41

    And also to the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, and comes from a distant land because of your name

  • 1 Kings 8:43

    you listen in the heavens, the place where you live, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you as your people Israel do, and to know that your name is called over this house that I have built.

  • 1 Kings 11:1

    And King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,

  • 1 Kings 11:8

    And so he did for all his foreign wives, who offered up in smoke and sacrificed to their gods.

  • 2 Chronicles 6:32

    And also to the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, but he comes from a distant land for the sake of your great name, your strong hand, and your outstretched arm, when they come and pray toward this house,

  • 2 Chronicles 6:33

    then you listen from the heavens, from the place where you live, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you as your people Israel does, and may know that your name is called over this house that I have built.

  • Ezra 10:2

    Then Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our Elohim and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; but now there is hope for Israel concerning this.

  • Ezra 10:10

    And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful and have married foreign women, adding to the guilt of Israel.

  • Ezra 10:11

    So now, give acknowledgment to YHWH, the Elohim of your fathers, and do his will, and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.”

  • Ezra 10:14

    Please, let our officials stand for all the assembly, and let all who in our cities have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of each city and its judges, until the burning anger of our Elohim is turned away from us over this matter.”

  • Ezra 10:17

    and they finished with all the men who had married foreign women by the first day of the first month.

  • Ezra 10:18

    And there were found among the sons of the priests who had married foreign women: of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.

  • Ezra 10:44

    All these had taken foreign wives, and there were among them wives by whom they had had children.

  • Nehemiah 13:26

    Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of these things? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and loved by his Elohim he was, and Elohim made him king over all Israel; even him the foreign women made to sin.

  • Nehemiah 13:27

    And shall we listen to you and do all this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our Elohim by marrying foreign women?”

  • Job 19:15

    Those who reside in my house and my female slaves count me as a stranger; a foreigner I have become in their eyes.

  • Psalms 69:8

    A stranger I have become to my brothers, and a foreigner to the sons of my mother.

  • Proverbs 2:16

    to rescue you from the strange woman, from the foreign woman who makes smooth her sayings,

  • Proverbs 5:10

    lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your toil go to the house of a foreigner;

  • Proverbs 5:20

    And why would you be lost, my son, with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?

  • Proverbs 6:24

    to keep you from the evil woman, from the smoothness of the tongue of the foreign woman.

  • Proverbs 7:5

    so that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreign woman who makes smooth her sayings.

  • Proverbs 20:16

    Take his garment, for he has become surety for a stranger, and for a foreign woman take a pledge from him.

  • Proverbs 23:27

    For a prostitute is a deep pit, and a foreign woman is a narrow well.

  • Proverbs 27:2

    Let a stranger praise you, and not your own mouth; a foreigner, and not your own lips.

  • Proverbs 27:13

    Take his garment, for he has become surety for a stranger; and for a foreign woman take a pledge from him.

  • Ecclesiastes 6:2

    a man to whom Elohim gives riches and possessions and honor, and he is not lacking for his soul anything of all that he desires; but Elohim does not give him power to eat from it, for a foreigner eats it. This is vapor and a bad sickness.

  • Isaiah 2:6

    For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full from the east, and have soothsayers like the Philistines, and with the children of foreigners they clasp hands.

And 5 more times.