Topic
Bray
3 passages cited, from 2 classic reference works.
These works date from 1896–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Proverbs 27:22ISBE · Nave To pound
Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
- Job 6:5ISBE
Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?
- Job 30:7ISBE
Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 3 references
bra (nahaq, "to bray," of the ass; kathash, "to pound in a mortar"): This word occurs with two distinct meanings:
(a) The harsh cry of the ass (Job 6:5). Job argued that as the sounds instinctively uttered by animals denote their wants, even so his Words were but the natural expression of his longing for some adequate explanation of his sufferings, or, failing this, for death itself. Used figuratively of Job's mockers (Job 30:7).
(b) "To beat small in a mortar," "to chastise." Pr 27:22 refers to a more elaborate process than threshing for separating grain (the English Revised Version "corn") from its husk and impurities; used figuratively of a thorough but useless course of discipline; or still more probably with reference to the Syrian custom of braying meat and bruised corn together in a mortar with a pestle, "till the meat and grain become a uniform indistinguishable pulp" (see The Expositor Times, VIII, 521).
M. O. Evans
In the topical indexes
Nave's Topical Bible (1896) · 1 references, grouped by sub-topic
- → To pound Pr 27:22
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915); Nave's Topical Bible (1896), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.