BECHER Sept. BoXbp and Baxtp) ; Ge senius (Thes. p. 206) connects this word with 5t, and Arabic a young camel. In older Onomastica (e. in Walton, Polyglot, vol. vi., sub. fin.), it is referred to the root and con nected with njzz pm/loge/W.2/s, first-born.' The same origin of this word seems to be given by Fuerst (Onomast. Sac., in Concordance, p. 1271); who compares 1:2 which he translates Iiiihg,eborner with the Greek names Archigenes, Protogenes. Other derivations have been suggested, but have found little favour.
This proper name occurs in (r) Gen. xlvi. 21 ; (2) i Chron. vii. 6, 8, twice ; and (3) in Num. xxvi. 35. In (r) and (2), Becher has the second place among the sons of the patriarch Benjamin ; but in (3), the same name is given to one of the sons (again the second in order) of Ephraim, son of Benjamin's brother Joseph. Becher is further here described as the head of 'the family' (A. V.), or rather clan or gene ' of the Bachrites ' ninth) (Mishpachath Habbakri).
Although this is all that can be alleged with cer tainty of this name, yet the purposes of this work would not be answered were we to ignore the dif ficulties with which the subject of this article is beset, owing to the apparent discrepancies of the genealogical lists. There are four such lists con nected more immediately with Becher ; the three occurring in the passages which have been already mentioned, and the fourth in r Chron. viii. T. It is important to observe that these documents were not only drawn up at different times by different writers, but actually refer to various periods of the national history. The first of them enumerates that interesting group of seventy, the nucleus of the future nation, which migrated with the vene rable patriarch to Egypt ; the second (which seems to be the exactest of the four, and to have been derived from public records) purports to be a census taken some 25o years afterwards, on the plains of Moab, when the nation, now fully or ganised, was about to enter the Promised Land ; the third and the fourth have all the appearance of less exactness, they are portions of a long genea logy of a fragmentary and supplemental character, derived by the author, not from the public archives which must have been destroyed at the period of the captivity and the fall of Jerusalem, temp. Zede kiah, but from private sources (Keil, Apol. Ver :itch irb. d. Bucher d. Ch,vnik. 198). This opinion coincides with the fact that these genealogies relate mainly to that part of the nation which returned from captivity, including the tribe of Benjamin, which has a remarkable prominence in these lists. These third and fourth lists occur indeed in con secutive chapters (i Chron. vii. 6, 12, and viii. i, etc.), but it by no means follows that they refer to continuous periods of time. J. D. Michaelis assigns the former to the age of David (to which verse 2 refers the census of ' the sons of lssachar ' therein adduced ; but this date need not be ex tended to the other genealogical fragments of the same chapter) ; whereas Keil (Apol. Versuch, p. 186) suggests its reference to a time previous to the calamitous Benjamite war, which is narrated in Judg. xx. xxi., on the strong ground of the ex treme improbability that at any subsequent period so many as 6o,000 mighty men of valour' could have been forthcoming from three clans only of this tribe.
This view, which we accept as the most pro bable, throws back our list to an early date, for the Benjamite war took place in the time of Phine has (see Judg. xx. 28), not long after the death of Joshua. It will be obvious at once, then, that a long interval intervenes between this genea logical fragment and our fourth and last register, which is generally referred to either a later period of the kingdom of Judah, or to the age of the Return from Captivity (I Chron. ix. 1). With
these dates of our four genealogies in mind, we now proceed to indicate their variations in refer ence to the subject of this article. In the first list (Gen. xlvi. 21), Benjamin's sons amount to no less than ten, Becher being the second ; in the next list (Num. xxvi. 35), he entirely disappears from the catalogue of the patriarch's sons, now reduced to seven, including two of his grandsons ; while in the third list, Becher resumes his place as second ; again, however, to disappear in the first verse of the very next chapter, from the enumera tion of Benjamin's sons, five of whom are mentioned this time, and in preciser terms than anywhere before : Now Benjamin begat Bela his first-born, Ashbel the second, and Aharah the third, Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth.' In these diver sities lies the difficulty in which the name of Becher is involved. Before we proceed to offer what appears to us the least objectionable solution of it, we will notice some of the expedients which have been proposed for meeting the discrepancy. It has been a frequent resource among Commen tators to attribute these genealogical variations to textual con-uption, and this has been resorted to order to rectify the genealogical discrepancy in the use of our word Becher. Thus in the fourth of our lists, I Chron. viii. 1, where the text reads, `Now Benjamin begat Bela his first-born, Ashbel the second, and Aharah the third, etc., etc.' The word raz (` his first-born'), is reduced to 102 (Becher), and the pronominal suffix 1 is trans formed into, the conjunction, and prefixed to the next word nwv., thus producing the sense, Ben jamin begat Bela, Becher, and Ashbel,' in agree ment with Gen. xlvi. 21. But this conformity is secured only by a mutilation of our verse, and in direct opposition to the peculiarity of its precise ' structural form. Three names are mentioned in it, with the express addition of the ordinals, first-born, the second, the thin!, etc. It is contrary to sound criticism to remove on mere conjecture the first of these ordinals, retaining still the others, which would in that case become inapplicable and untrue, for Ashbel would be no longer the second,' nor Aharah the third,' etc. Moreover, Kennicott alleges a large amount of MS. evidence in favour of the plene scriptum in this word 11173, thus raising an additional obstacle in the way of the proposed change. (See Kennicott's Vet. Test. Hebr. ii. p. 565.) We feel bound to prefer the text as it stands to such an amendment as this. Another mode of reconciling the difficulties of these tables, is based on the alleged and undoubt ed fact, that the members of the Jewish families bore more than one name each, and that the same individual appears in one list under one name, and in another list under another name. (See Carpzovii Intmcluctio in V. T., vol. i. pp. 292, 293.) This is not the place to examine this theory fully ; suffice it to say in passing, that it can only be applied with safety now and then. Some of BECHER'S brothers (Genesis), or else nephews (Numbers and Chronicles), appear with double names, or rather the same names slightly altered ; e.g., rate in Gen. V. 21, is lengthened into nn+nti A hiram, in Num. v. 38; while the //uppiin, of Gen. v. 21, becomes min Hupham, in Num. v. 39, and iron Huram, in Chron. viii. 3. Again, by transposition and abridgment, Int.: Arel, in Gen. v. 21, becomes 'IN Arida, in Chron. viii. 3, and nvni sheyshiginam, in Chron. viii. 5, becomes Shupham, in Num., and Inn Shuppim, in Chron. vii. 12. These, however, are mild con jectures, and may be accepted without hesitation.