Midvash

מִיmîy

who?, of persons, as מָה (q.

Pronunciation: me · Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) · H4310

Meanings

v.) of things, Note in particular

a. מִי is rarely used of things, and usually where persons are understood or implied (Genesis 33:8; Deuteronomy 4:7; Judges 9:28)

b. in the genitive (Genesis 24:23; Genesis 24:47; 1 Samuel 12:3)

c. in an indirect question (Genesis 21:26; Genesis 43:22; Deuteronomy 21:1)

d. ׳ מי ב who among …? (1 Samuel 22:14; Isaiah 36:20; Isaiah 43:9)

e. strengthened and emphatic forms of interrogative (Psalms 24:10; Jeremiah 30:21; Esther 7:5)

f. various rhetorical uses (Psalms 15:1; Psalms 18:32; Isaiah 28:9)

g. מִי may sometimes be rendered whosoever, though, as the examples will shew, it does not really mean it (Exodus 24:14; Isaiah 50:8; Isaiah 54:15)

h. once, following a verb (compare מָה 3), any one (2 Samuel 18:12; 2 Samuel 18:5)

Same root

Where it appears

Appears 423 times in the Bible.

  • Genesis 3:11 “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”
  • Genesis 19:12 Meanwhile, the angels questioned Lot. “Do you have any other relatives here in the city?” they asked. “Get them out of this place—your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else.
  • Genesis 21:7 Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!”
  • Genesis 21:26 “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Abimelech answered. “I have no idea who is responsible. You have never complained about this before.”
  • Genesis 24:23 “Whose daughter are you?” he asked. “And please tell me, would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”
  • Genesis 24:47 “Then I asked, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She replied, ‘I am the daughter of Bethuel, and my grandparents are Nahor and Milcah.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her wrists.
See every passage

Source: Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain; markup by unfoldingWord, CC BY (github.com/unfoldingWord/Brown-Driver-Briggs-Enhanced).