the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Herd
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Bâqâr (בָּקָר, Strong's #1241), “herd; cattle.” This noun has cognates in Arabic and Aramaic. It appears about 180 times in biblical Hebrew and in all periods.
One meaning of the word is “cattle.” Such beasts were slaughtered for food, and their hides were presented as offerings to God (Num. 15:8). This meaning of bâqâr is in Gen. 12:16 (the first biblical occurrence): “And he [Pharaoh] entreated Abram well for her [Sarah’s] sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses.…” These were grazing beasts (1 Chron. 27:29) and were eaten (1 Kings 4:23). These animals pulled carts (2 Sam. 6:6) and plows (Job 1:14), and carried burdens on their backs (1 Chron. 12:40).
Bâqâr often refers to a group of cattle or “herd” (both sexes), as it does in Gen. 13:5: “And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds [in the Hebrew, this word appears in a singular form] and tents.” The word can represent a “small group of cattle” (not a herd; cf. Gen. 47:17; Exod. 22:1) or even a pair of oxen (Num. 7:17). A single ox is indicated either by some other Hebrew word or called an offspring of oxen (Gen. 18:7).
Bâqâr also refers to statues of oxen: “It [the altar of burnt offerings] stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east …” (1 Kings 7:25).
Some scholars believe this noun is related to the verb bâqâr (“to seek out”) and to the noun bôqer (“morning”).
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Herd'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/h/herd.html. 1940.
