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beqer
בקר
'beqer' refers to all things bovine or cattle related; including cows, bulls, and calves, as well as beef. Contextual examples abound and are quite clear.1)
Despite this fact, most traditional translations do not treat the word with consistency. Rather, around half of the instances2) are correctly interpreted as cattle, but approximately half3) of the instances are erroneously translated as “morning”.
There is a good reason for this though. It seems to be a metaphorical use of the cattle motif to indicate time of day (and possibly time of season) by use of the easily recognizable constellation known as Taurus. There is one verse in particular which refers to “the stars of Taurus” explicitly:
Job 38:7 - cheer together stars of Taurus, shout all sons of the Alehim
Many instances refer to the stars only implicitly, usually by way of reference to the night sky in the early predawn hours. For example:
- Genesis 19:27 - Abraham Taurus predawn went to the place who stood characteristics with edge Ihoh
- Genesis 20:8 - Abimelech Taurus predawn studied whole servant speak with whole Speaking Ones tree ear fear Other Ones very
This correlation is spelled out in Job 38:12 - each cycle commands Taurus experience dawn in place
There is another usage that differs from these. It occurs six times in Genesis 1, and in several other references paired with the word yereb ostensible meaning “Evening and Morning”. Contextually this seems consistent, but the clear tie in with Taurus and morning makes one wonder if there may be another astronomical reference implied by yereb yet to be discovered.
LexID 1241