- - , B-Hebrew, 15 Oct 2008, Stephen Shead : HALOT (following others) suggests that it may be the other way around: the
noun "shoulder" gave rise to a verb "to do something early" (e.g. get up
early, set out early), as a development from "to load up the animals in the
morning" (i.e. put things on their shoulders before setting out). They list
a couple of cognate verbs (Ugaritic *tkm* and Ethiopian *sakama*) which mean
"to place on the shoulders".