עֵז

From the study of Song of Songs 4:1

Range of meaning

Goat, most often the she-goat. Goats were basic livestock in Israel's hill country, giving milk, meat, and long black hair woven into tent cloth (Exodus 26:7; 35:26; compare Song 1:5, 'dark like the tents of Kedar').

Against the English

English readers may think of goats as comic or a byword for something low, and a compliment comparing someone's hair to goats can sound odd. To a herding people it was an attractive picture taken from daily life.

How it drifted

Cultural distance rather than a change in the word's meaning.

Used elsewhere in the period

The local breed (black, long-haired goats, still herded by Bedouin) made goat hair proverbially black. Compare 1 Samuel 19:13, where goat-hair matting stands in for a man's head of hair in a bed.