cattle

אֶלֶף לַמַּטֶּה (Bamidbar 31:4), a thousand to a tribe, הִנֵּה אַלְפִּי הַדַּל בִּמְנַשֶּׁה (Shoftim 6:15), my thousand is the poorest in Menasheh, and שָׂרֵי אֲלָפִים (Shemos 18:21), captains of thousands, of which he says ענינם ידוע, their sense is known. From the same sense, צֹאונֵנוּ מַֽאֲלִיפוֹת (Tehillim 144:13), which he glosses יולדות לאלפים, bearing by the thousands.

אַלּוּפִי וּמְיֻדָּֽעִי (Tehillim 55:14), my chief and my acquaintance, אַלּוּף נְעֻרַי אָֽתָּה (Yirmiyahu 3:4), You are the chief of my youth, and אַלּוּף תֵּימָן אַלּוּף אוֹמָר (Bereishis 36:15), the chief Teiman, the chief Omar. The sense of all of them is שר וגדול, a prince and a great man. Chazal (Sanhedrin 99b) said כל אלוף מלכותא בלא תגא, every aluf is kingship without a crown. Radak explains: he lacks nothing of being a king but the crown, for a man is called king when he is crowned and aluf when he is not.

Some read הִנֵּה אַלְפִּי הַדַּל בִּמְנַשֶּׁה (Shoftim 6:15), behold, אַלְפִּי is the poorest in Menasheh, from the sense of a chief, taking it as my father, which what follows would bear out: וְאָֽנֹכִי הַצָּעִיר בְּבֵית אָבִֽי, and I am the youngest in my father's house. They read וְצֵלַע הָאֶלֶף (Yehoshua 18:28), and Tzela Ha'elef, the same way, as the great one. Yonasan read כְּכֶבֶשׂ אַלּוּף (Yirmiyahu 11:19) from it, rendering כְּאִימֵר בְּחִיר, like a choice lamb.

פֶּן־תֶּאֱלַף (Mishlei 22:25), lest you learn his ways; and where the verb takes an object, כִּֽי־יְאַלֵּף עֲוֹֽנְךָ פִיךָ (Iyov 15:5), which he glosses כי ילמד עונך פיך, your sin teaches your mouth; וַֽאֲאַלֶּפְךָ חָכְמָֽה (Iyov 33:33), and I will teach you wisdom; and מַלְּפֵנוּ מִבַּֽהֲמוֹת אָרֶץ (Iyov 35:11), teaching us from the beasts of the earth, whose proper form is מְאַלְּפֵנוּ.

בָּנוּי לְתַלְפִּיּוֹת (Shir HaShirim 4:4), built for talpiyos: some read it from this root with the alef dropped for ease, the full form being לְתַֽאַלְפִּיּוֹת. Rabbi Yonah wrote that the tav stands in place of the alef, so that it is as אַלְפִּיּוֹת and its sense is teaching; Radak explains him to mean that the tower, being high, is something wayfarers are taught by. Radak himself will explain it at root תלל as a compound word.

In שְׁגַר־אֲלָפֶיךָ (Devarim 7:13), the offspring of your oxen, and וְהָֽאֲלָפִים וְהָֽעֲיָרִים (Yeshayahu 30:24), the oxen and the young donkeys, the word is oxen. In another form, אַלּוּפֵינוּ מְֽסֻבָּלִים (Tehillim 144:14), our oxen laden, either laden with flesh, that is, fat and full of meat, or laden with work, there being much to work with them. In כְּכֶבֶשׂ אַלּוּף יוּבַל לִטְבוֹחַ (Yirmiyahu 11:19) a kaf of comparison or an added vav is wanting: like a lamb, like an ox, or like a lamb and an ox led to the slaughter.

וְדָֽרַשְׁתִּי אֶת־צֹאנִי וּבִקַּרְתִּֽים (Yechezkel 34:11), I will seek out My flock and look them over; לֹֽא־יְבַקֵּר הַכֹּהֵן (Vayikra 13:36), the kohen shall not examine; and יִֽהְיֶה־לִּי לְבַקֵּֽר (Melachim II 16:15), it shall be for me to inspect, which he glosses כשיעלה בלבי לבקרו, when it comes into my heart to inspect it. The noun is כְּבַקָּרַת רֹעֶה עֶדְרוֹ (Yechezkel 34:12), like a shepherd's looking over his flock. All of them, he says, are דרישה ובקור, seeking and examining.

From this sense the morning is called בֹּקֶר, because in the morning every thing is made out by the light of day, while its opposite, the evening, is when all things mix together and a man cannot tell them apart. And the light is called בקר: כּוֹכְבֵי בֹקֶר (Iyov 38:7), stars of the morning, as though it said stars of light, like כָּל־כּוֹכְבֵי אֽוֹר (Tehillim 148:3), all the stars of light, and those, he says, are the seven that serve. Likewise the morning is called אור: מִן־הָאוֹר עַד־מַֽחֲצִית הַיּוֹם (Nechemiah 8:3), from the light until midday, as though it said from the morning. And וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלֽוֹ (Tehillim 27:4) can be read from this, like ולשחר: to seek at dawn in His Heichal.

At Vayikra 19:20, which he glosses מולקת תהיה, she shall be lashed. Rav Saadiah Gaon wrote that the word is בקורת because the lashes are given with רצועה של בקר, a strap of cattle hide; or, he wrote, the bet may stand in place of a peh, the two being close in sense because they come from one place in the mouth, as the Mishnah's הבקר לעניים (Peah 6:1), declared free for the poor, is as הפקר, ownerless; and Targum Yerushalmi renders וּנְטַשְׁתָּהּ (Shemos 23:11), and you shall let it lie, with ותבקרון יתה, and you shall leave it ownerless. On this reading the sense of בִּקֹּרֶת תִּֽהְיֶה is that she is הפקר, not having been freed, and therefore they are not put to death, though there is lashing. Chazal say, in Kerisos, that the lashing is hers and not his, since the pasuk says תִּֽהְיֶה, she shall be, and not יהיו, they shall be.

Another sense: צֹאן־וּבָקָר (Bereishis 13:5), flocks and herds, whose sense he calls known; in the plural, אִם־יַֽחֲרוֹשׁ בַּבְּקָרִים (Amos 6:12), does one plough with oxen. And the verb from it, כִּֽי־בוֹקֵר אָנֹכִי (Amos 7:14), for I am a בוקר, which he explains as רועה הבקר, a herdsman of cattle.

עָגֹל סָבִיב (Melachim I 7:35), round about, and מְרֻבָּעוֹת לֹא עֲגֻלּוֹת (Melachim I 7:31), square and not round.

The noun is וְשָׁאוּל שֹׁכֵב בַּמַּעְגָּל (Shmuel I 26:5), and Shaul lay in the מַעְגָּל, which is the place of the camp; with a heh added, וַיָּבֹא הַמַּעְגָּלָה (Shmuel I 17:20), and he came to the camp. It is called so because in a camp they encamp around, in a ring. In יָשָׁר מַעְגַּל צַדִּיק תְּפַלֵּס (Yeshayahu 26:7), You level the straight way of the righteous, and the plural בְמַעְגְּלֵי צֶדֶק (Tehillim 23:3), in ways of righteousness, the sense is the way and the highway.

עָגִיל is an ear ornament: טַבַּעַת עָגִיל (Bamidbar 31:50), ring, earring, and so וַעֲגִילִים עַל אָזְנָיִךְ (Yechezkel 16:12), and earrings on your ears. עֵגֶל בֶּן בָּקָר (Vayikra 9:2), a calf of the herd. עֶגְלָה מְשֻׁלֶּשֶׁת (Bereishis 15:9), a heifer, threefold, is three heifers; it cannot mean one three years old, since at three years she would be called a פרה, a cow. עֲגָלָה חֲדָשָׁה (Shmuel I 6:7), a new wagon: the wagon is called so because it is round.

שָׁרִים וְשָׁרוֹת (Koheles 2:8), men singers and women singers, and אָז יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה (Shemos 15:1), then Moshe sang. The nouns are שִׁיר and שִׁירָה, a song.

אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ וְלֹא קָרוֹב (Bamidbar 24:17), I behold him but not near. יָשׁוּר כְּשַׁךְ יְקוּשִׁים (Yirmiyahu 5:26) he glosses: he watches as a man who sets a trap watches the birds when they settle, and so do they watch and lie in wait for men. Their sense, he says, is looking and observing, and from it אֱלֹהִים יַרְאֵנִי בְשֹׁרְרָי (Tehillim 59:11), Elokim will let me see those who watch me, means my enemies, since an enemy watches his enemy and observes him for harm.

וּתְשׁוּרָה אֵין לְהָבִיא (Shmuel I 9:7), and there is no present to bring, תְּשׁוּרָה being as a minchah, a gift. Rabbi Yonah writes that וַתָּשֻׁרִי לַמֶּלֶךְ בַּשֶּׁמֶן (Yeshayahu 57:9) is of this sense, that you offered a minchah before him, and Rav Saadiah Gaon explains it so too. Radak holds that the right reading is that ותשורי is as ותלכי, and you went to the king with oil; and so תָּשׁוּרִי מֵרֹאשׁ אֲמָנָה, you shall go from the top of Amanah, and יָשֹׁר עַל אֲנָשִׁים, he goes to men and confesses before them. From this sense of going, he says, a gift is called תשורה, because a man brings it. It may be, too, that יָשׁוּר כְּשַׁךְ יְקוּשִׁים (Yirmiyahu 5:26) is of going: they go about while the trappers rest, the trappers being those who spread the nets, who rest and set no trap at night, whereas these go about all night to catch men.

Of going too: אֳנִיּוֹת תַּרְשִׁישׁ שָׁרוֹתַיִךְ (Yechezkel 27:25), the ships of Tarshish were your caravans, which he explains as the caravans that travel in trade; the Targum renders אֹרְחַת יִשְׁמְעֵאלִים, a caravan of Yishmaelim, by שְׁיָרַת עֲרָבָאֵי, a caravan of Arabs. Those who go by sea are called a caravan too, since many ships go together. It may also be read as those that encamp by you, from the Targum's וּשְׁרָא for וַיִּחַן (Shemos 19:2), and he encamped.

בָּנוֹת צָעֲדָה עֲלֵי שׁוּר (Bereishis 49:22), daughters stride upon the wall, where שׁוּר is a wall, as the Targum of חוֹמָה is שׁוּרִין. עִקְּרוּ שׁוֹר (Bereishis 49:6), spelled with a cholam, he puts under the wall as well: they uprooted a wall. From this sense is בֵּין שׁוּרֹתָם יַצְהִירוּ (Iyov 24:11), between their walls they make oil, שׁוּרֹת being the plural of שׁוּר: for fear of the wicked they bring the olives in and make the oil between the walls. Some explain it as between the rows of the olive trees, from Chazal's word שורה, a row (Pesachim 1:1, 2a). And שׁוֹר אוֹ כֶשֶׂב אוֹ עֵז (Vayikra 17:3), an ox or a sheep or a goat, is the ox. Rabbi Yaakov ben Elazar puts עִקְּרוּ שׁוֹר under the ox, as a figure for a ruler, as Tanach calls great princes rams and he-goats; some take it as a real ox, that they hamstrung the cattle.

שָׂרִים עָצְרוּ בְמִלִּים (Iyov 29:9), princes held back their words, and וַיָּשַׂר אֲבִימֶלֶךְ (Shoftim 9:22), Avimelech ruled. Where the verb takes an object it is to set someone in rule: הֵשִׂירוּ וְלֹא יָדָעְתִּי (Hoshea 8:4), they made princes and I did not know, that is, they set a prince over themselves and not by My leave. Two he reads here are written with a samech: יָסֹר בַּמַּשָּׂא (Divrei HaYamim I 15:22), he was chief in the מַשָּׂא, which Radak says is that he was a prince and eminent in prophecy, or in the raising of the voice in song; and כֻּלָּם סָרֵי סוֹרְרִים (Yirmiyahu 6:28), all of them are סָרֵי סוֹרְרִים, which he reads as שרים סוררים, rebellious princes, and so the Targum, כָּל רַבְרְבֵיהוֹן מָרְדִין, all their great ones rebel. Radak says he has explained that pasuk at the root נחשׁ.

בַּמִּשְׁקָל וּבַמְּשׂוּרָה (Vayikra 19:35), in weight and in measure. A מְשׂוּרָה is a measure, but a very small one, as Chazal say (Bava Metzia 61b) that it is a thirty-third part of a log. וּמַיִם בִּמְשׂוּרָה תִשְׁתֶּה (Yechezkel 4:11), and you shall drink water by measure, does not mean that the measure is a sixth of a hin: he is to drink no more than a sixth of a hin in a day, and to drink it little by little, by the measure. In וּלְכָל מְשׂוּרָה וּמִדָּה (Divrei HaYamim I 23:29), and for every measure, small and large, משורה is said of the small measures and מדה of the large.

In וְשָׂם חִטָּה שׂוֹרָה (Yeshayahu 28:25), and he sets the wheat שׂוֹרָה, some take the last word from ruling: fine and choice wheat. Rabbi Yonah sets it with the measures instead, like what the pasuk says next, וּשְׂעֹרָה נִסְמָן וְכֻסֶּמֶת גְּבֻלָתוֹ, and barley in its marked place and spelt at its border.