That's a great post! Thanks for writing this blog. I really enjoy learning something interesting each morning with my coffee :)
Thanks - I enjoy writing it as well.
If I might make a stretch, how about this connection: bakar/cowboy -- Buckaroo!
Hi. In this posting as well as the previous one you note that the roots in question are similar to other roots which begin with the same two letters (טרח/טרה/טרד, בקר/בקע) While I know that roots in hebrew have 3 letters, I am also aware that there was a theory that some Hebrew roots have two letters (Rashi, for one, believed this). Even without agreeing with the 2 -letter theory it's hard not to notice that often roots with the same two first letters seem to be related (another example would be roots starting פר many of which mean something like to divide or come apart: פרח/פרט/פרס/פרק/פרד...) Do you know anything more on this subject?
This is a complicated subject, and I think it would be better left to professional linguists. I've read a number of pieces about it, and no one seems to have conclusive evidence one way or another.
The one thing I can say, is that with the ease of letters switching, there may be cases where it seems that there's a two letter root, but in fact it's just one of the letters switching a number of times.
The verb "b-k-r" provides the key to understanding the the noun meaning "herd", and the noun meaning "morning".
In Tanach, b-k-r denotes looking after in the sense of tending or taking care of.
II Kings 17:15, "and the copper altar will be for me to look after li'vaker"
Proverbs 20:25 (very tough one to interpret) "after vows will I search out li'vaker.
Psalms 27:4 (you allude to this above). A better translation of "oo-li'vaker b'haichalo" is "too look after God's sanctuary".
Ezekiel 34:11,12 "I searched my flock and tended to them (oo-vi-kartim)...I will tend (avakair) my flock".
Leviticus 13:36 "The priest will not carefully seek out (y'vakair) the golden hair"
Leviticus 27:33 "Don't look after (the tithed animal) for good or bad".
A bakar, herd, is a thing that requires looking after, tending, unlike a "tzon" (flock) that you let go in the field and they do their thing until nightfall.
Morning (boker) is the time when the bokair (herdsman - a modern Hebrew word) goes out and takes care of his responsibilities.
Bikkur cholim means not "visiting the sick" but "looking after the sick". To do the mitzvah, you have to do more than visit: you ask if you can help the sick person, you go to shul and say a misheberach for them, etc.
It is no accident that the most meritorious time to do bikkur cholim is in the morning.
best,
Flea
Please don't fall into the Etymological Fallacy of similar root patterns. It has been proven by the academic community that sometimes words have similar roots with unrelatd meanings.
Which "similar root patterns" are you referring to?
Commenting by HaloScan
