The first occurrence.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. Gen 1:7
(In the Scripture Picture: And God saw everything that He had made …)
The primitive root.
Strong’s H834 אשר asher, a primitive relative pronoun with no verbal root, meaning, “who, which, that.” The 3-letter root is aleph + shin + resh.
aleph א = the ox head, thus strength, power, leader
shin ש = two front teeth, thus sharp, press, eat, two, again
resh ר = the head of man, thus head, first, top, beginning, man
The story: The cognate concrete noun gives a clue as to the story. The noun is cord. In ancient days, a cord was made when two (shin) strips of leather or sinew were attached at the top (resh) and then twisted together in such a fashion so as to lock their fibers. As a strong (aleph) cord (shin + resh) can be used to tie two things together, so the relative pronoun ties two clauses of the sentence together.
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