Something bought , i.e. property , but only live stock ; abstractly, acquisition
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The Hebrew noun miqneh usually names livestock considered as acquired property: flocks, herds, cattle, and other animals that support a household's food, work, mobility, trade, and wealth. The word makes economic value visible without reducing the animals or the people who care for them to a spiritual score.
Reader summary
Full entry for מִקְנֶה (H4735) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun miqneh usually names livestock considered as acquired property: flocks, herds, cattle, and other animals that support a household's food, work, mobility, trade, and wealth. The word makes economic value visible without reducing the animals or the people who care for them to a spiritual score.
The BSB source-word alignment has 76 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include their livestock (7), livestock (5), . . . (4), the livestock (4), and livestock (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 4:20. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (28), Exodus (13), Numbers (8), 1 Chronicles (4).
The Hebrew noun miqneh usually names livestock considered as acquired property: flocks, herds, cattle, and other animals that support a household's food, work, mobility, trade, and wealth. The word makes economic value visible without reducing the animals or the people who care for them to a spiritual score. Abram's livestock accompanies great wealth, yet growing herds also create land pressure and conflict between herdsmen.
Jacob points to the way Laban's animals prospered under his labor. During Egypt's plagues, officials who heed the warning shelter servants and livestock, while famine later forces families to exchange their animals for food. Large herds shape tribal requests for land and can attract invasion and plunder. Possession therefore carries care, risk, dependence, and social consequences.
A single acquisition use can extend beyond livestock, but the dominant range remains concrete animal property. Biblical abundance must not be turned into a promise that faithful people will become wealthy or that loss proves divine rejection.
Miqneh presents livestock as economically valuable property that requires labor, shelter, water, land, and protection and can become a source of provision, conflict, vulnerability, or plunder.
Then Jacob answered, “You know how I have served you and how your livestock have thrived under my care.
Jacob appeals to Laban's own knowledge that the livestock prospered under Jacob's sustained service and care.
Those among Pharaoh’s officials who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their servants and livestock to shelter,
Officials who fear the Lord's warning hurry both their servants and livestock into shelter before the hail.
So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their flocks and herds, and their donkeys. Throughout that year he provided them with food in exchange for all their livestock.
During famine, Egyptians exchange horses, flocks, herds, and donkeys for food, transferring productive assets under severe necessity.
Now the Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, surveyed the lands of Jazer and Gilead, and they saw that the region was suitable for livestock.
The Reubenites and Gadites evaluate Jazer and Gilead as suitable land because their herds and flocks are very large.
In order to seize the spoil and carry off the plunder, to turn a hand against the desolate places now inhabited and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and possessions and who live at the center of the land.’
The invading force intends to plunder a restored people whose acquired livestock and possessions make them a target.
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. Livestock as acquired wealth; concrete property value in pastoral economy, never abstract possessions.
Livestock as acquired wealth; concrete property value in pastoral economy, never abstract possessions.
something bought, i.e. property, but only live stock; abstractly, acquisition BDB: cattle Usage: cattle, flock, herd, possession, purchase, substance.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
מִקְנֶה is built from this root:
Miqneh makes wealth tangible and demanding. Livestock may represent abundance, but every herd requires pasture, water, shelter, attention, and people who perform sustained work. Jacob's claim to Laban is not merely that animals increased; it is that Laban knows how the livestock fared under Jacob's service. Exodus pairs servants and animals as lives that prudent officials bring under shelter when warning comes.
Genesis 47 shows the vulnerability behind possession, as famine consumes money and then productive assets in exchange for food. Numbers 32 shows that large herds influence where tribes wish to settle, creating questions about shared obligation and land. Ezekiel shows how accumulated goods can draw predatory violence. The noun therefore resists a prosperity slogan.
Livestock can be provision, responsibility, pressure, bargaining power, or spoil. Faithful application asks how wealth was gained, who labors for it, how risks are shared, whether neighbors are harmed, and what happens when crisis strips a household of the assets needed to recover.
Gen.30.29
Miqneh is a masculine Hebrew noun related to acquisition and used predominantly for livestock held as property. English renderings include livestock, cattle, herds, flocks, possessions, or acquired stock. Genesis 49:32 preserves an acquisition-related rendering, but the corpus overwhelmingly concerns living animals.
Jesus and the apostles warn against making possessions the ground of security while affirming responsible work, generosity, and care for need. Those teachings deepen miqneh's stewardship questions without converting every Old Testament livestock count into either a prosperity promise or a command to renounce all property.