|
|
|
Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
|
|
|
Meaning and etymology of the Hebrew name Baara
|
|
| | |
Baara 
The beautiful name Baara (pronounced Ba'arah) is rare, even in the Bible. She's the wife of yet another obscure figure, namely a Benjaminte named Shaharaim who sends her and his other wife Hushim away for non-disclosed reasons.(1 Chronicles 8:8). Some scholars say that Baara is the same as Hodesh of verse 9, but the text seems to indicate the Hodesh was a third wife, and that Baara was the only one of three wives to remain childless.
There are a few ways to go with the name Baara. It may come from the verb  (ba'ar), meaning to kindle, burn or consume. It should be noted that in Biblical times a fire was the center of civilization. People gathered around it, cooked on it, kept wild animals at bay with it and purified their metals with it. A possible negative usage of this verb is in the action of burning with anger or intense emotion (Esther 1:12, Jeremiah 20:9).
The obvious derivation of this verb is  (be'era), meaning fire (Exodus 22:6), but it must be noted that this is a very rare form, literally meaning "that what was kindled."
Curiously, another verb that is identical to the one mentioned above, is (ba'ar), meaning to be stupid, brutish or most literally: beastly. This verb was probably formed after the noun  (be'ir), denoting beasts or cattle. BDB Theological Dictionary deems the connection between the two verbs obscure, and perhaps the two verbs came to the Hebrew language via other languages and accidentally became identical. But perhaps the Hebrews recognized anger, and especially acts committed out of anger, to be behavior shared with higher animals. HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament reads about the latter root, "The root seems to contrast man's ability to reason and understand with the beast's inability to do so - Proverbs 30:2."
The final aleph may be explained by seeing it as a substitute for the letter he, which is the common extension to make a word feminine. The substitution of aleph for he is not uncommon.
For a meaning of the name Baara, NOBS Study Bible Name List goes with the latter root and reads a rather uncompromising Foolish. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names leans towards the first root and reads Kindling Of The Moon (meaning: new moon), but this root refers never to the moon, and nowhere in the Bible is the moon reported to burn or even be warm. Jones probably proposes this because of the proximity of the name Hodesh (=New Moon) to the name Baara. The name Baara taken from the first root would mean Kindling.
A related name is Beor.
|
|
|
•Look for baby names
•Augment your Hebrew language study
•Deepen your knowledge of the Bible
•Enrich your cruise to or travel holiday in Israel
|
|
