to seek earnestly: to look hard for someone or something, pressing after it with eager, whole-hearted effort
The Hebrew word shachar is one of several verbs for seeking, but a pointed one. It is not a casual glance around; it is the eager, determined search of someone who badly wants to find what they are after. More than any other seek-word, it is aimed at God.
In its most common use, people seek God with this verb: worshippers who long for him, a nation that turns back to him in trouble, a sinner who looks for him in repentance. It carries the hopeful promise that God can be found by those who search for him with their whole heart, a promise even personified Wisdom repeats in her own voice when she says that those who seek her find her (Proverbs 8:17).
Hebrew has plainer words for seeking, בָּקַשׁ and דָּרַשׁ. This verb stands beside them but adds intensity. One proverb actually stacks all three together, praising the person who "seeks good" with this word alongside the everyday ones (Proverbs 11:27).
The verb is tied by sound and by long tradition to the noun for dawn (שַׁחַר), and older Bibles often heard "seek early in the morning" in it (the King James Version's "seek betimes"). Whether that daybreak flavor is really part of the meaning, or only the word's family history, is debated; most now read it simply as seeking with all one's heart, whatever the hour.
Nuances
Disputed
Whether the verb carries an active temporal nuance of seeking "early, at dawn" (as a denominative of shachar, "dawn"), or means simply "to seek diligently," the morning connection being only etymological.
- minorityThe verb is derived from the noun for dawn and retains a "seek early in the morning" sense, reflected in the older translation tradition.; BDB, s.v. שׁחר
- majorityThe verb means simply "to look for, seek" (earnestly); the dawn derivation is background and the temporal sense is not active in the usage.; HALOT, s.v. שׁחר