a young ram or fattened male lamb, prized as choice livestock for food, sacrifice, or tribute
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is the most common use of the word: a young, well-fed male sheep, valued enough to head a list of a nation's best animals. It shows up among the choice livestock God gives Israel ("the fat of lambs and rams of Bashan"), among the flocks a shepherd-king hands over as tribute, and among the animals traded by desert merchants.
Because these were prime beasts, they turn up wherever wealth, feasting, or sacrifice is in view: the self-indulgent rich of Amos eat them, and the great slaughter-offerings of Isaiah and Ezekiel are heaped with their fat. When a single English word is needed the choice is usually "lamb" or "ram," yet neither quite catches that this is a young sheep fattened for the table or the altar, distinct from the grown ram (איל) it so often stands beside.
Deu 32:141Sa 15:92Ki 3:4Isa 16:1Isa 34:6Jer 51:40Ezk 27:21Ezk 39:18Amo 6:4
2
a pasture or grassy meadow where flocks graze
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong
Here the word names open grazing land, a green meadow where sheep feed. The picture is peaceful and abundant: hills that "are clothed with flocks," and cattle grazing in "a broad pasture" on a day of plenty.
The sense is rare and easily confused with the livestock word, since the two are spelled alike. One difficult line in the Psalms, where the wicked vanish "like the glory of the pastures," is read this way by most scholars, though an older tradition took it as "the fat of lambs"; the placement here follows the majority reading.
Psa 37:20*Psa 65:13(14)Isa 30:23
3
a camel's saddle, or the cushioned basket-seat mounted on it
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This word appears only once, for the gear on a camel's back. When Rachel hides her father's household idols, she tucks them into the camel's saddle and sits on it. Ancient versions and modern scholars understand it as the camel's saddle, or more precisely the padded, tent-like basket-seat strapped over the saddle in which a rider sat, roomy enough to conceal the small figures beneath her.
Because it occurs just this once, translators differ over the exact object, rendering it "camel's saddle," "camel's furniture," or "camel's cushion." The general idea, a seat or pack mounted on the animal, is not in doubt.
Gen 31:34
4
a battering ram: a heavy siege engine used to break through a city wall or gate
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong
In two siege scenes the word names a battering ram, the heavy timber engine an army sets against a city to smash through its wall or gate. Ezekiel is told to sketch a model siege of Jerusalem and "set battering rams against it," and later the king of Babylon posts them at the gates.
Whether soldiers named the engine after the butting animal or the two words are simply unrelated is uncertain, but in these verses the meaning is fixed by the surrounding ramps, siege walls, and gates: this is a machine of war, not a live beast.
This is the young lamb prized as tender, fattened meat, the delicacy the self-indulgent feast on and the choicest fat of the flock.Amo 6:4Psa 37:20
It names the pick of the young flock, the prime animals a conqueror spares from destruction or a subject people sends on to its ruler.1Sa 15:9Isa 16:1
Both
Both are counted as animals of the flock in tallies of pastoral wealth, tribute, and trade, rams and lambs named together in the same breath.2Ki 3:4Ezk 27:21
Both are slaughtered as victims whose blood is spilled and whose fat is offered, and both stand as figures for a people led to the sword.Isa 34:6Jer 51:40
Both are prized as the fat, well-pastured stock of good grazing land, symbols of rich provision.Deu 32:14
The full-grown male ram is the animal the law prescribes for the weightiest rites, the consecration of priests and the guilt offering that repairs a broken trust, where a younger animal is never allowed to stand in for it.Exo 29:1Lev 5:15
Because it is the mature male, its hide and horns count for something in their own right: ram skins dyed red roof the sacred tent, and the ram caught by its horns is what dies in Isaac's place.Exo 25:5Gen 22:13
כבשׂthe ordinary word for a lamb or young sheep, especially the sacrificial lamb, without the sense of a specially fattened animal
A specially fattened ram or lamb prized as choice livestock, paid as tribute and named as a token of wealth rather than commanded by the sacrificial law.2Ki 3:4Isa 16:1Deu 32:14
The tender fatling set on the table of the self-indulgent and heaped up in trade, evoking luxury and plenty.Amo 6:4Ezk 27:21
Both
Both name a young male sheep of the flock that can be brought to the altar and slaughtered.Exo 12:5Isa 34:6
The animal the law prescribes for Israel's regular worship: a blemish-free male in its first year offered as the daily, festival, and purification sacrifice.Exo 29:38Lev 23:12Num 28:3
Counted out by fixed number in the sacrificial calendars and the tribal offerings, a ritual staple valued for its correctness rather than its plumpness.Num 7:15Num 28:4Lev 14:10
מרעהgrazing ground or pasture in general, close to the pasture sense of this word but the ordinary, more common term for it
Most often it names a well-fed young ram or lamb, the fat animal of the flock offered as tribute or served at a feast, not a place at all.Deu 32:141Sa 15:9Amo 6:4
It can also name the cushioned basket-saddle strapped onto a camel for a rider to sit in.Gen 31:34
In siege language it names the battering-ram, the war engine set against a city wall to break it open.Ezk 4:2Ezk 21:22
Both
Both can denote the open grazing land where flocks are clothed and fed, the green meadow itself.Psa 65:13Isa 30:23Ezk 34:14Gen 47:4
In a siege it is the piece of equipment aimed at the city's weak points: it is set against the gates so they can be forced open, while the encircling works are raised separately in the same set of orders.Ezk 21:22Ezk 4:2
The siege meaning is a narrow, borrowed use of an everyday farm word. Its usual sense is a young ram from the flock, counted out as tribute or served at a feast, so only a siege setting makes it a weapon at all.2Ki 3:4Amo 6:4Isa 34:6
Both
Both belong to one operation. Ezekiel's instructions for besieging a city name them in the same breath, along with the ramp of piled earth, as the standard gear for shutting a city in.Ezk 4:2
Both are things the besieger deliberately places against a city that can no longer come out and fight, so each appears in the text as calculated preparation for a fall rather than as the chance of open battle.Ezk 26:8Ezk 21:22
This word is only ever siege work. Every appearance is something an attacking army puts up against a city it has already surrounded, so the word carries no ordinary, peacetime use.2Ki 25:1Jer 52:4Ezk 26:8
It is built on the spot rather than brought to the field. The armies "built" it right around Jerusalem, and it stands beside the ramp of piled earth as part of the works that close a city in and starve it out.2Ki 25:1Ezk 17:17
kar in the other biblical languages
ἀμνόςGreek“lamb”the Greek word for a sacrificial lamb, used of the Lamb of God, where this Hebrew word can name the young ram brought for offering
is the Lamb "of God," the one whose death takes away the sin of the world, the title John the Baptist gives to Jesus.Jhn 1:29Jhn 1:36
pictures the silent, unresisting victim led to the slaughter and shorn without a sound, the suffering figure of Isaiah 53 read as fulfilled in Christ.Act 8:32
is the flawless, spotless lamb whose blood is the ransom price for people, worth more than perishable silver or gold.1Pe 1:19
What scholars say about kar
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat כר as several homographs rather than one polysemous word: (I) a young ram or fatling lamb, the most frequent use, regularly paired with איל (ram) and עתוד (he-goat) in lists of livestock, sacrifice, and tribute (Deuteronomy 32:14;2 Kings 3:4;Isaiah 34:6;Ezekiel 27:21; 39:18); (II) pasture or meadow (Psalm 65:13;Isaiah 30:23); (III) a camel-saddle or saddle-basket, a hapax at Genesis 31:34; and (IV) a battering ram (Ezekiel 4:2; 21:27 [English 21:22]). The relationships among these are debated: the battering-ram sense is sometimes derived metaphorically from the animal and sometimes taken as an independent lexeme, and the etymology of the pasture and saddle senses is likewise uncertain. Psalm 37:20 (כִּיקַר כָּרִים) is a recognized crux, read by most as "like the glory of the pastures" but by an older tradition as "like the fat of lambs."