Mivchar (מִבְחָר, H4005) means choice, the choicest, the best, select. From the root bachar (H977, to choose/select). It appears in Genesis 23:6 — 'bury your dead in the choicest (mivchar) of our tombs' — and in Ezekiel 24:4–5, describing the best pieces placed in the cooking pot as a metaphor for Jerusalem. Also used of 'choice men' (warriors), as in Exodus 15:4 — 'Pharaoh's choicest (mivchar) officers are drowned in the Red Sea.'
The concept of mivchar — the choicest, the best — is inseparable from the theology of divine election and sacrificial offering. God consistently calls for the best: the firstborn, the firstfruits, the unblemished animal. When Israel brought second-rate offerings, Malachi rebuked them sharply (Malachi 1:8). Mivchar in Exodus 15:4 describes Pharaoh's elite warriors drowned in the sea — the best of human power brought low by divine deliverance. In contrast, God's own 'choicest' is Jesus Christ — not simply the best human but the eternal Son, God Himself, given freely. The Incarnation is the ultimate mivchar: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son' (John 3:16). When we offer God our best, we echo His own character of giving the choicest.