Thursday 7 April 2016

Erev

Grammar

Word: ערב
Representation: ORV

Transliteration: Erev
Noun: "evening"
Strong Concordance: H6153


Exposition

This word appears less than 200 times in the Tanach. While is it often a transitional term for "going into the night", it is also just another term for "night". Context is important here, as it is with all words.

In the case of Genesis-1 with the formula "And it was evening, it was morning..." it speaks of a passage of time, going from darkness laying above the heavens, and being pulled away so that the light can reside there, going from night to day, transitioning from evening to morning.

In the Talmud, the Sages go into great detail on how to determine the exact point of the start of evening and morning, as it relates to reciting the evening and morning recitation of Scriptural passages. They typically used the term "evening" as that period that is no later than midnight and used "night" for that period after evening, but before morning.

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