🔼The name Becorath: Summary
- Meaning
- First Birth, First Fruition
- Etymology
- From the verb בכר (bakar), to be born first.
🔼The name Becorath in the Bible
The name Becorath occurs only one time in the Bible. He's mentioned as an ancestor of king Saul, the son of Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, of Benjamin (1 Samuel 9:1).
🔼Etymology of the name Becorath
The name Becorath comes from the verb בכר (bakar), meaning to be born first:
בכר
The verb בכר (bakar) means to be born first or rise early or earliest. The masculine noun בכור (bekor) describes the firstborn or eldest son, and the feminine counterpart בכירה (bekira) describes the first-born daughter. Noun בכרה (bekora) refers to the right of the first-born. Noun בכורים (bikkurim) means first fruits. Noun בכורה (bikkura) refers to the first ripe fig; a proverbial delicacy.
Feminine noun בכרה (bikra) came to denote the young of a camel, which is not merely cute but quite significant. The adult camel was the unit of international trade, and the word for camel — namely גמל, gamal — derives from a verb that means to ripen or come to fruition; hence the link to first fruits. A camel calf symbolizes an emerging market.
The name Becorath doesn't occur as a proper noun. It seems to reflect a plural form of the word בכורה (bikkura), meaning the first ripe fig. Thus the name Becorath could be literally interpreted as First Ripe Figs, but this would obviously allude to either general first-ness or else pre-eminence.
🔼Becorath meaning
For a meaning of the name Becorath, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads The First Birth. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes a daring if not somewhat redundant Offspring Of The First Born, and BDB Theological Dictionary simply reads First Born.