בַּר
bar
grain
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Word *Bar* (בַּר): Grain in Ancient Judea The Hebrew term *bar* designates grain in its various forms—the staple cereal crops that formed the foundation of ancient Israelite agriculture and economy. With thirteen occurrences across the biblical text, this word appears with sufficient frequency to indicate its importance to the biblical writers and their audiences. The word's straightforward definition reflects a concrete reality: grain was not merely a food source but a measure of wealth, a medium of exchange, and a critical indicator of a region's prosperity or famine. The relatively modest number of occurrences suggests that while grain was fundamental to daily life, biblical authors sometimes employed alternative terminology or referred to grain through related concepts. The presence of this specific lemma in the lexicon indicates that Hebrew speakers distinguished this particular term for grain from other grain-related vocabulary, suggesting nuances in meaning that the single English translation "grain" may not fully capture. Understanding *bar* requires recognizing it as a technical agricultural term tied to the material conditions of ancient Near Eastern life rather than merely a poetic or metaphorical concept.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
13 total occurrences across the text
The pastures are covered with flocks. The valleys also are clothed with grain. They shout for joy! They also sing.
Psalms 72:16Abundance of grain shall be throughout the land. Its fruit sways like Lebanon. Let it flourish, thriving like the grass of the field.
Proverbs 11:26People curse someone who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.
Jeremiah 23:28The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?” says Yahweh.
Joel 2:24The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
Amos 5:11Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
Amos 8:5Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;
Amos 8:6that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’ ”
Genesis 41:35Let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and store grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it.
Genesis 41:49Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he stopped counting, for it was without number.
Genesis 42:3Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.
Genesis 42:25Then Joseph gave a command to fill their bags with grain, and to restore each man’s money into his sack, and to give them food for the way. So it was done to them.
Genesis 45:23He sent the following to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provision for his father by the way.