Something seized , i.e. a possession (especially of land)
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The Hebrew noun achuzzah names a possession or holding, especially land secured for residence, burial, inheritance, pasture, or tribal life. Abraham asks for and purchases a burial property while living as a foreigner.
Reader summary
Full entry for אֲחֻזָּה (H272) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun achuzzah names a possession or holding, especially land secured for residence, burial, inheritance, pasture, or tribal life. Abraham asks for and purchases a burial property while living as a foreigner.
The BSB source-word alignment has 66 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include property (7), possession (6), site (5), . . . (4), as a possession (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 17:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (20), Ezekiel (15), Genesis (9), Numbers (9).
The Hebrew noun achuzzah names a possession or holding, especially land secured for residence, burial, inheritance, pasture, or tribal life. Abraham asks for and purchases a burial property while living as a foreigner. Israel's Jubilee instructions return people to family holdings and preserve possibilities of land redemption after poverty-driven sale. The daughters of Zelophehad are judged correct when they request an inheritance so their father's name will not disappear.
Ezekiel forbids a prince from evicting people from their holdings to enlarge his sons' inheritance. The same noun also appears where Leviticus treats enslaved foreigners as inheritable property. That use must be named honestly as an ancient legal arrangement involving profound inequality; it cannot be turned into a moral endorsement of slavery or ownership of persons.
Land and inheritance can support belonging, memory, livelihood, and protection from displacement, yet property rights remain accountable to God's justice and must never make another human being property in Christian application.
Achuzzah connects landed possession with burial, covenant inheritance, family continuity, Jubilee return, tribal allocation, and protection from princely eviction, while also exposing an enslaving property category that requires explicit moral safeguarding.
So the field and its cave were deeded by the Hittites to Abraham as a burial site.
The field and cave are formally deeded to Abraham as a burial property after the public full-price transaction.
So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan.
Jubilee joins proclaimed liberty with each Israelite returning to family property and clan after economic disruption.
“The daughters of Zelophehad speak correctly. You certainly must give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers and transfer their father’s inheritance to them.
The Lord declares the daughters of Zelophehad correct and commands that their father's inheritance be transferred to them.
The prince must not take any of the inheritance of the people by evicting them from their property. He is to provide an inheritance for his sons from his own property, so that none of My people will be displaced from his property.’”
The prince must provide for his sons from his own property rather than evicting the people from their inheritances.
You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life. But as for your brothers, the Israelites, no man may rule harshly over his brother.
The law permits foreign slaves to be inherited as property, while forbidding harsh rule over fellow Israelites and revealing unequal legal status.
And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.”
God promises Abraham's descendants the land of their sojourning as an enduring possession within the covenant promise.
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. Land held as permanent inherited possession; often describes tribal/family allotments in covenantal land distribution
Land held as permanent inherited possession; often describes tribal/family allotments in covenantal land distribution
something seized, i.e. a possession (especially of land) BDB: possession Usage: possession.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 66 lexical occurrence verses.
אֲחֻזָּה is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Achuzzah shows that possession is relational rather than absolute. Abraham's burial holding is secured through a public purchase while he remains a sojourner. Jubilee law limits the permanent loss of family land and links liberty with return. The daughters of Zelophehad expose a gap in inheritance practice, and God's ruling protects their family's continuity.
Ezekiel restrains princely accumulation by forbidding eviction of the people for dynastic advantage. These passages treat land as a place of burial, livelihood, belonging, memory, and intergenerational responsibility. Yet Leviticus also applies the noun to enslaved foreigners inherited as property, preserving an unequal system that violates the truth that human beings bear God's image when copied into Christian ethics.
Responsible teaching must not hide that verse or use it to defend enslavement. The lexeme invites both gratitude for stable place and scrutiny of power: who may hold land, who can return, who is displaced, and whether property arrangements protect or commodify vulnerable people.
Ezek.46.18
Achuzzah is a feminine Hebrew noun for a possession or holding, most frequently landed property. It can denote family, tribal, city, priestly, or princely holdings, burial property, and inherited status. Its use for enslaved persons reflects the legal category imposed on them, not a change in their humanity.
The New Testament describes believers as heirs and God's people while also directing masters toward justice and announcing freedom in Christ. The gospel's trajectory toward equal dignity must not be used to conceal the harms of biblical-era slavery, and spiritual inheritance language does not erase concrete responsibilities around land and displacement.