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Bible Dictionaries
Dayspring
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or DAYSPRING . An old English expression denoting the dawn (‘the day sprynge or dawnynge of the daye gyveth a certeyne lyght before the rysinge of the sonne,’ Eden, Decades , 1555, p. 264). It occurs in Job 38:12 ‘Hast thou … caused the dayspring to know his place?’; Wis 16:28 ‘at the dayspring pray unto thee’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘at the dawning of the day’). Virtually the same expression occurs in Judges 19:25 and 1 Samuel 9:26; cf. also Genesis 32:24 and Psalms 65:8 (east and west called ‘the outgoings of the morning and evening’). In Luke 1:78 the expression ‘dayspring from on high’ probably goes back to a Heb. original which was a well-understood personal designation of the Messiah (combining the ideas of ‘light’ and ‘sprout’); it would then be a poetical equivalent for ‘Messiah from heaven.’
G. H. Box.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Dayspring'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/d/dayspring.html. 1909.
