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creation: “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth
also, with all that therein is” (Deut. 10:14).
TO HELP
(
, 5826), “to help, assist, aid.” This word and its derivatives are common in
both ancient and modern Hebrew. The verb occurs about 80 times in the biblical text.
*
is first found in the Old Testament in Jacob’s deathbed blessing of Joseph: “… The
God of thy father, who shall help thee …” (Gen. 49:25).
Help or aid comes from a variety of sources: Thirty-two kings “helped” Ben-hadad (1
Kings 20:6); one city “helps” another (Josh. 10:33); even false gods are believed to be of
“help” (2 Chron. 28:23). Of course, the greatest source of help is God Himself; He is “the
helper of the fatherless” (Ps. 10:14). God promises: “I will help thee” (Isa. 41:10); “and
the Lord shall help them, and deliver them …” (Ps. 37:40).
HERD
%
(
, 1241), “herd; cattle.” This noun has cognates in Arabic and Aramaic. It
appears about 180 times in biblical Hebrew and in all periods.
One meaning of the word is “cattle.” Such beasts were slaughtered for food, and their
hides were presented as offerings to God (Num. 15:8). This meaning of
%
is in Gen.
12:16 (the first biblical occurrence): “And he [Pharaoh] entreated Abram well for her
[Sarah’s] sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses.…” These were grazing beasts
(1 Chron. 27:29) and were eaten (1 Kings 4:23). These animals pulled carts (2 Sam. 6:6)
and plows (Job 1:14), and carried burdens on their backs (1 Chron. 12:40).
0 %
often refers to a group of cattle or “herd” (both sexes), as it does in Gen. 13:5:
“And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds [in the Hebrew, this word
appears in a singular form] and tents.” The word can represent a “small group of cattle”
(not a herd; cf. Gen. 47:17; Exod. 22:1) or even a pair of oxen (Num. 7:17). A single ox
is indicated either by some other Hebrew word or called an offspring of oxen (Gen. 18:7).
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also refers to statues of oxen: “It [the altar of burnt offerings] stood upon
twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three
looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east …” (1 Kings 7:25).
Some scholars believe this noun is related to the verb
%
(“to seek out”) and to the
noun
%
(“morning”).
HERO
A. Nouns.
(
%
, 1368), “hero.” This word appears 159 times in the Old Testament. The
first occurrence of
is in Gen. 6:4: “There were giants in the earth in those days;
and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they
bare children to them, the same became
which were of old, men of renown.”
In the context of battle, the word is better understood to refer to the category of
warriors. The
is the proven warrior; especially is this true when
is used in
combination with
(“strength”). The
KJV
gives a literal translation, “mighty men