🔼The name Bichri: Summary
- Meaning
- My First Born, Pertaining To Initial Fruition
- Etymology
- From (1) the verb בכר (bakar), to be born first.
🔼The name Bichri in the Bible
There's only one person named Bichri in the Bible. He is a Benjaminite, and his sole attraction to history's attention is having a noteworthy worthless son named שבע (Sheba; 2 Samuel 20:1).
Sheba leads an insurrection against king David. But David's army commander Joab pursues him as far as the city of Abel, and lays siege to the city until the townsfolk behead Sheba and lob his head over the town's wall. And that's the end of Sheba.
🔼Etymology of the name Bichri
The name Bichri 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 final letter yod can have all kinds of functions. It could indicate a possessive (My First Born), or it could be a remnant of יהוה (Yahweh; First Born Of Yahweh). But most sources seem to prefer seeing the yod in the same function that forms the ethnonym: literally: He Of First-Born-ness.
🔼Bichri meaning
For a meaning of the name Bichri, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads First Born. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes Juvenile and BDB Theological Dictionary reads Youthful, but this is ultimately incorrect. The name Bichri does not celebrate youth but first-bornness, which is a big difference. After all, one can be a hundred years old and still first born, or a toddler with ten older brothers.