Bered
Be'red (Heb. id. כֶּרֶד, hail, in pause Ba'red, בּ רֶד, Ge 16:14; Sept. always Βαράδ), the name of a place and of a man.
1. A town in the south of Palestine, between which and Kadesh lay the well Lahai-roi (Ge 16:14; comp. ver. 7). The name is variously given in the ancient versions: Syriac, Gadar [? — Gerar]; Arab. Iared, probably a mere corruption of the Hebrew name; Onkelos, Chagra, חִגרָא (elsewhere employed in the Targums for "Shur"); Ps. — Jonathan, Chalutsa, חֲלוּצָא i.e. the Elusa, ῎Ελουσα, of Ptolemy and the ecclesiastical writers, now el- Khulasah, on the Hebron road, about 12 miles south of Beersheba (Robinson, 1, 296; Stewart, p. 205; Reland, p. 755). We have the testimony of Jerome (Vita S. Hilarionis) that Elusa was called by its inhabitants Barec, which would be an easy corruption of Bered, ך being read for ד. Chaluza is the name elsewhere given in the Arabic version for "shur" and for "Gerar." SEE ELUSA.
2. A son of Shuthelah and grandson of Ephraim (1Ch 7:20); supposed by some to have been identical with Becher in Nu 26:35, by a mere change of letters (בכר for ברד), but with little probability from the context. B.C. post 1856.
