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Word of the Week
בר (BaR)
In this issue we are continuing the study of the Parent Root בר and the roots and words which are derived from it.
The Hebrew word “BaR” literally means “grain” as previously mentioned but its meaning can also be extended to mean “soap” or “clean”. As will be shown in more detail later, grains are fed to livestock to make them fat. The fat of animals are used to make soap. The soap is of course used to make one clean. It is this word BaR that is also translated as “pure” – “He that hath clean hands, and a pure (BaR) heart (Ps 24:4).
The Hebrews understood a “pure heart” as a “clean heart”. You must also understand that “guilt” was seen as dirt. In order to remove the dirt from the heart you must clean it. Hopefully this will cause you to begin viewing the Bible from a different perspective, the perspective of its original authors. Next week we will look at a few other words that are derived from this parent root.
A common means of forming an additional noun out of a two letter word is to double the word. The word ברבר (pronounced "barbur") is a fowl as seen in the following verse; Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl (1Ki 4:23). Again we can easily see the connection between the word "BaR" and the idea of being "fattened".
This word is also used in the Aramaic language to mean "field" as a place for growing grains as well as "son" probably through the idea of offspring in connection with the seeds of the grain.
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