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--- beqer [2024/10/09 17:43] – external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1
+++ beqer [2025/03/19 20:36] (current) – ken
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 Some of the references also refer to the night watch, so that the concept of several different shifts of night watch comes into play, which might offer some evidence toward an explanation. This is a concept that also relates to the various constellations of stars that would be visible during that watch. When one is sitting around outdoors at night, trying to stay awake, one cannot help but notice these patterns in the sky. Furthermore, the setting of one constellation and the rising of the next is an ideal indicator for the nightwatchman to wake his relief for the next shift.
-This metaphor may be a multilayered one, with an additional layer of meaning relating to the practice of dairy farmers waking before dawn to milk the cows. This is certainly a consistent practice throughout history, but it is unclear just exactly how ancient it is, when the practice began or whether it depends more on the physiology of the cows themselves or of the farmers. In any case, these ancient farmers rising in the wee hours of darkness would certainly have noticed the pre-dawn sky and an easily recognizable constellation that in their minds was connected to the fact that they had to wake up early to care for the cows. They experienced that certain ineffable feeling one gets when staring at the night sky while everyone else is asleep. In their mind's eye, this group of stars was intimately connected with their herd and almost seemed to draw an image of a bull in the night sky. At some point, the star grouping itself took on the name 'beqer' and the stars became cattle - a pattern which has persisted throughout millennium and even now is still known as the bull albeit in the Latin language as "Taurus"; a somewhat enigmatic reference to which appears in the book of Job, explicitly referring to "the stars of Taurus":
+This metaphor may be a multilayered one, with an additional layer of meaning relating to the practice of dairy farmers waking before dawn to milk the cows. This is certainly a consistent practice throughout history, but it is unclear just exactly how ancient it is, when the practice began or whether it depends more on the physiology of the cows themselves or of the farmers. In any case, these ancient farmers rising in the wee hours of darkness would certainly have noticed the pre-dawn sky and an easily recognizable constellation that in their minds was connected to the fact that they had to wake up early to care for the cows. They experienced that certain ineffable feeling one gets when staring at the night sky while everyone else is asleep. In their mind's eye, this group of stars was intimately connected with their herd and almost seemed to draw an image of a bull in the night sky. At some point, the star grouping itself took on the name 'beqer' and the stars became cattle - a pattern which has persisted throughout millennium and even now is still known as the bull albeit in the Latin language as "Taurus"; a somewhat enigmatic reference to which appears in the book of Job, explicitly referring to "the stars of [[zodiac#Taurus]]":
 Job 38:7 - //cheer together the **stars of Taurus**, shout all sons of the Alehim//