Bible Dictionary
BRAY
To make the harsh cry of a donkey, or to pound something thoroughly in a mortar. Scripture uses both senses literally and as figures for lamentation, mockery, or severe but ineffective discipline.
Definition
To bray may mean to make the harsh cry of a donkey or to pound something finely in a mortar. The word therefore describes either an animal’s cry or a thorough beating and grinding process.
Biblical Usage
Job uses the donkey’s braying figuratively for the natural expression of suffering and for the cries of mockers. Proverbs 27:22 compares severe but ineffective discipline with pounding grain or meat in a mortar.
Historical Background
The mortar process was more elaborate than threshing and could involve pounding meat and bruised grain into a uniform pulp. The donkey’s cry was understood as expressing its needs.
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>bra (nahaq, "to bray," of the ass; kathash, "to pound in a mortar"): This word occurs with two distinct meanings:</p><p>(a) The harsh cry of the ass (Job 6:5). Job argued that as the sounds instinctively uttered by animals denote their wants, even so his Words were but the natural expression of his longing for some adequate explanation of his sufferings, or, failing this, for death itself. Used figuratively of Job's mockers (Job 30:7).</p><p>(b) "To beat small in a mortar," "to chastise." Pr 27:22 refers to a more elaborate process than threshing for separating grain (the English Revised Version "corn") from its husk and impurities; used figuratively of a thorough but useless course of discipline; or still more probably with reference to the Syrian custom of braying meat and bruised corn together in a mortar with a pestle, "till the meat and grain become a uniform indistinguishable pulp" (see The Expositor Times, VIII, 521).</p><p>M. O. Evans</p>