BAR (substantive), occurs only in the OT as tr. for four Heb. terms. The most common in the descriptions of the building of the Tabernacle is Heb. בְּרִיחַ, H1378, “a bar of wood” used to seal a gate or entrance or simply as a stress-bearing member in a building (Exod 26:26ff.) Three other terms are so traditionally tr. in various VSS. Heb. בַּד֒, H963, is common in the OT in the sense of “portion,” “part,” but in Job 17:16 KJV it reads “bar,” as does JPS. A similar context, Isaiah 38:10, is properly tr. “gates of the nether world.” In Job 40:18 is the only occurrence of the obscure term, מָטִיל, H4758, in a parallel poetic phrase: “His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of māṭīyl).” The traditional tr. has been “iron.” A similar parallelism is found in Psalm 107:16 and Isaiah 45:2 (KJV) where the word brass also appears as the “A” word with iron as the “B” word, so the meaning is prob. “iron.” The Heb. H4573, מﯴט֮, occurs in Numbers 4:10, 12 where it is tr. “bar” and in 13:23 where KJV reads “staff,” JPS reads “pole.” However, the identical root is read “move,” or “totter” in Psalms 66:9; 121:3. A more common form of the term is found in Isaiah 58:6, 9 and numerous other passages all of which occurrences are tr. “yoke” by KJV. The RSV follows no pattern or system in the use of the term. It is important to note that all of these terms in Heb. have no known etymologies or cognates in other Sem. tongues so their meanings must remain obscure.