בשׂר bśr;* בְּשׂוֹרָה beśôrāh

Contents: I. Etymology, Occurrences, Usage in the Ancient Near East. II. Secular Usage: 1. Good News in General; 2. With tobh; 3. Sad News. III. Theologico-Religious Meaning: 1. Proclamation of Yahweh’s Saving Deeds; 2. The Messenger of Joy; 3. Intensification in Trito-Isaiah.

I. Etymology, Occurrences, Usage in the Ancient Near East. In the OT the root bśr occurs 30 times in all: 14 times as a verb in the piel, once as a verb in the hithpael, 9 times as a substantival participle, and 6 times as a noun. Since the Hebrew knows only the intensive form, it seems likely from the start that a survey of the actual usage of this root in OT contexts will yield only a semantic analysis, and not an etymological conclusion.

This root is well attested in the ancient Near East. Even if we encounter varying s-sounds, comparative Semitic grammar shows that this is normal. Akkadian has the forms bussuru/passuru and bussurtu meaning “to bring a message (news)” and “message (news)” respectively. In itself, this word is neutral; consequently, the noun can be defined more precisely by adding other terms, as in the expressions bussurat lumnim, “bad news,” and bussurat dumqim, “good news,” or bussurat ḫadê, “joyful news.” In the majority of cases, both the noun and the verb forms denote a good message or good news. By way of comparison, Arab. baššara, Old South Arab. ʾbšr, Ethiop. absara, and Jewish Aram. bsr always mean “to bring good news.” In Ugaritic, the verb bšr means “to bring glad tidings,” and in the t-form “to receive it,” while the noun bšrt means “glad tidings.” These occurrences appear in three passages: CTA, 10 [IV AB], III, 34f., where Anat brings Baal the joyful news of the birth of a bull calf, causing him to rejoice (šmḫ); CTA, 19 [I D], II, 37, in a broken context which evidently has to do with news of victory; and CTA, 4 [II AB], V, 26f., where Anat brings Baal the news that a house is going to be built for him.

II. Secular Usage

1. Good News in General. In the OT we find bśr and its derivatives in three literary strata. We encounter the nontheological usage especially in the books of Samuel and Kings. The use of this word in the episode of the news about Absalom’s death is significant for determining the biblical meaning. It does not lack a certain dialectic, and for this very reason is instructive. The messengers and David, who awaits their arrival, have entirely different ideas about the content of the message: the messengers saw in the death of the insurgent Absalom the opportune occasion for their message, but David, as Absalom’s father, hoped that the message would be that Absalom was still alive. Both parties, the messengers (2 S. 18:19, 20) and David (18:25, 26), speak of “joyful” tidings that are brought or expected by using various forms of bissar, mebhasser, and besorah. We find the same thing when news of the death of Saul is brought to the land of the Philistines (1 S. 31:9 = 1 Ch. 10:9) and to David (2 S. 4:10); and in connection with the discovery of the flight of the Syrians (2 K. 7:9). David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan has the verb bśr in the piel in the first stich of 2 S. 1:20, but its parallelism with samach, “to rejoice,” and ʾalaz, “to exult,” makes it clear that the Philistines must have regarded the news as a joyful message. bśr is also used in parallelism with samach when news of the birth of Jeremiah is brought to his father (Jer. 20:15). Here undoubtedly bśr means “news of a joyful event.”

2. With tobh. In two passages in the OT, tobh(ah), “good,” modifies the root bśr: once it modifies the noun (2 S. 18:27), and once the verb (1 K. 1:42). In both cases this may be because the person to whom the message was carried was under great psychical tension: David anticipated from Ahimaaz, a “good man,” the kind of news he wanted to hear; in the midst of the celebration of his self-appointment to the throne, Adonijah became very anxious when he heard an echo of the surprising proclamation of Solomon as king, and he hoped to hear from Jonathan, a “worthy man,” words of reassurance. Thus the reason for the addition of tobh in these texts is to emphasize that the recipients of the tidings were hoping for “glad” tidings, and not to clarify the meaning of the root. Twice the noun besorah means “reward given to a messenger” (2 S. 4:10; 18:22). This also assumes that bśr means basically “glad” tidings.

3. Sad News. In one passage mebhasser is used of a messenger who brings to Eli the priest the sad news of Israel’s defeat and of the death of his sons (1 S. 4:17). Does this singular negative use of the root bśr justify the conclusion (assumed in KBL2) that bśr is a neutral word in Hebrew, and must be modified by “glad” or “sad” or something similar to convey the idea of glad or sad tidings? Or are we to agree with Friedrich when he assumes that the original meaning of this root is “glad” tidings? In our opinion Friedrich is correct, because the use of this root in extrabiblical literature also reveals the tendency to connect the root bśr with “glad” tidings, as Ugaritic in particular shows. The actual use of bśr in Biblical Hebrew starts at this semantic stage and further develops it. The exception in 1 S. 4:17 can be interpreted as a levelling down, and does not compel us to postulate that the original meaning in Hebrew was neutral.

III. Theologico-Religious Meaning

1. Proclamation of Yahweh’s Saving Deeds. Only the verb and the substantival participle of bśr are used in a theologico-religious sense in the OT. Thus we will leave besorah out of our discussion from now on. The religious use of bśr is found in two rather strictly definable strata, the Psalms and the Prophets.

The use of bśr in Ps. 68:12 (Eng. v. 11), which speaks of “female messengers of victory in great number,” represents a definite transition from secular news of victory to news of victory in the sphere of salvation history grounded in Yahweh. The text here is not undisputed, but recent commentaries and translations leave it as it stands. The female messengers of victory are probably to be understood on analogy with the women who sang of the victories of Saul and David in 1 S. 18:7f. Ps. 68:12(11) does not have in mind news of victory carried to a specific audience, but a joyful announcement of Yahweh’s saving deeds, the “declarative praise” of God. It is only a step from this to the meaning that bśr assumes in certain cultic texts (Ps. 40:10[9] and 96:2 = 1 Ch. 16:23). In the cult, bśr does not have to do with reporting news, but with joyfully proclaiming Yahweh’s great deeds as confession and in order to awaken religious joy.

2. The Messenger of Joy. This figure takes on new color in the dramatic sketch of the mebhasser who runs on the mountains to Jerusalem as a messenger of joy when Assyria falls (Nah. 2:1[1:15]). Deutero-Isaiah has the same figure, and the more he connects it with basic promises of salvation, the more expressive it becomes. Isa. 52:7 deals not only with the exodus from Babylon (52:11f.), but also with the tidings that in conjunction with this exodus God’s royal dominion has begun. In the first stich we find the substantival participle in the absolute meaning “messenger of glad tidings”; then the second stich is in synthetic parallelism, ending with the declaration of the sovereignty of God: here we encounter the significant words shalom, “peace,” tobh, “good,” and yeshuʿah, “salvation.” In this parallel stich, the participle of bśr is not substantival, but appears once with the obj. tobh, “good,” between two mashmiaʿ (“publish”) clauses in which the objects are shalom, “peace,” and yeshuʿah, “salvation,” respectively. The addition, tobh, is not adverbial and is not to be interpreted as a clarification of the particular nuance of bśr; instead, it is the second element in a threefold series of terms: peace, good, salvation. Similarly, the participle of bśr appears in the absolute in Isa. 40:9 (twice) meaning “female messenger of peace,” and in 41:27 meaning “messenger of joy.” In Deutero-Isaiah mebhasser always refers to Yahweh’s victory and the beginning of salvation.

3. Intensification in Trito-Isaiah. In Trito-Isaiah we probably have the highest intensification of the meaning of bśr. First of all, this root is used in the sense of a proclamation of the praise of God by benevolent multitudes from Sheba, etc. (Isa. 60:6). In Isa. 61:1, it is more than a proclamation, but also more than a prophetic prognosis of the future. In his own interpretation of his mission, the prophet sees as his primary task lebhasser ʿanavim, “bringing good tidings to the afflicted.” Here the verb is absolute, and can denote only a saving message for the oppressed and poor, not a neutral message. The proclamation of a word of salvation, and thus of a joyful message of God, is a primary element in the work of the prophet along with healing, liberating, comforting, saving, etc., and is itself a saving event. The event-character of what is said in this entire pericope is clear to the extent that the proclamation of the prophet must be understood as an “announcement … which also gives rise to that which is proclaimed.” Thus bśr acquires an active note. With the announcement of glad tidings, the fulfilment begins; Yahweh himself is present and active in his word.

The height attained in Trito-Isaiah would be complete if we could find in bśr the basis for the NT key word euangélion, “gospel” (to say something about the later history of this word). Unfortunately, the noun besorah is not used in Isa. 61:1, and we do not know which intermediate Aramaic word Jesus used when he spoke of the “good news of the kingdom” (Mt. 4:23). However, in light of the quotation of Isa. 61:1 in Lk. 4:18f. and its adaptation to Jesus there, it is probably not far wrong to regard the translation of bśr by the Gk. deponent verb euangelízesthai in the LXX as the basis for the key word euangélion.

In summary, it can be said that the theologico-religious usage of bśr confirms to a great extent the established secular sense of “bringing glad tidings” and develops this in relation to the message of salvation.