loez and laaz

One of the most familiar verses in Hallel is the opening of Tehillim 114:

בְּצֵאת יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָיִם בֵּית יַעֲקֹב מֵעַם לֹעֵז

A common translation is, “When Yisrael went forth from Egypt, the house of Yaakov from a people of foreign speech” (Tehillim 114:1). 

Yet לֹעֵז (loez), usually understood as describing someone who speaks a foreign or unintelligible language, appears only once in the Tanakh. The verse doesn't explicitly mention language. It only describes the Egyptians as an עַם לֹעֵז. How can we know what the word originally meant, and why did the psalmist use it to describe Egypt?

The familiar interpretation is supported by later Hebrew. The Mishnah (Megillah 2:1) says:

אֲבָל קוֹרִין אוֹתָהּ לַלּוֹעֲזוֹת בְּלַעַז

“But it may be read for foreign-language speakers in a foreign language.” 

Here לועזות describes the speakers, while לעז denotes their language. Rashi later used בלעז to introduce translations into Old French. Still, a word's meaning can change over time, and this evidence alone does not prove its biblical sense.

A popular folk etymology interprets לעז as an abbreviation of לשון עם זר, “language of a foreign people,” or לשון עבודה זרה, “language of idolatry,” giving rise to the spelling לע״ז. The word already appears in Tehillim, however, so it cannot have originated as an acronym. 

Foreign speech or wickedness?

Medieval Hebrew scholars did not agree about the meaning of the verse. Menachem ben Saruk, in his Machberet, interpreted מעם לועז as ענין זדון הוא, referring to wickedness. Rav Saadia Gaon, by contrast, understood the word as describing unclear or unintelligible speech. In his Seventy Isolated Words, he supported this explanation by citing the Mishnah's reference to foreign-language speakers and comparing the word to Arabic usage.

But rabbinic Hebrew preserves another sense of לעז: an accusation that damages someone's reputation. We still say להוציא לעז על, “to cast aspersions on someone,” or more broadly, to disparage or discredit someone. The Gemara (Niddah 13a), for example, speaks of a man who:

ומוציא לעז על בניו שהן ממזרין

“Casts aspersions on his children, suggesting that they are illegitimate.” 

Dunash ben Labrat seized on this meaning in his book of objections to Saadia. In objection 45, he drew also on an Arabic expression associated with sexual misconduct, and argued that עַם לֹעֵז describes a corrupt or immoral people, not foreign-language speakers.

Saadia and Dunash both turned to rabbinic Hebrew to explain the same rare biblical word, but chose different meanings. Dunash's interpretation also leaves open the possibility that the negative sense of לעז reflects an older association with harmful speech or behavior, rather than developing solely from “foreign language.” That is a possibility, not an established history. Klein instead suggests that the sense of disparagement probably developed from the meaning involving foreign speech. The precise relationship remains uncertain. 

Rabbi Yonah ibn Janach and Radak in their dictionaries also understood לֹעֵז as referring to foreign speech, while Ibn Ezra, in his commentary on Tehillim 114:1, mentions both the foreign-language and disparagement senses without clearly choosing between them.  

Rabbi Baruch Brener surveys these early opinions and quotes them in their original in detail in this essay.

Could the original meaning have been broader?

Related languages offer evidence that the word originally described speech that was difficult to understand. BDB and Klein compare לעז with Syriac words concerning unintelligible speech and Arabic لغز laghaza, associated with riddles or obscure expression. Foreign speech might then be just one kind of speech perceived as unintelligible.

A further possibility links לעז with לעג, “to mock.” Gesenius compares the two roots, along with לוץ, and proposes that an early sense of stammering or unclear speech could lead both to speaking a foreign language and to mockery, perhaps through imitating someone's speech. Jastrow likewise compares לעז with לעג, identifying the verb initially as “to talk, babble” and recording both speaking in a foreign language and speaking against someone, by criticizing or casting suspicion. The Academy of the Hebrew Language also relates לעז to לעג and to the familiar words לִגְלֵג (mock) and עִלֵּג (speaking haltingly). Ruvik Rosenthal suggests a related explanation involving distorted speech: unfamiliar language can sound like a distortion of familiar speech, while disparagement distorts what is said about another person. These comparisons suggest how a word associated with strange or unintelligible speech might also come to describe mockery or disparagement, although the precise development of these meanings remains uncertain. .

The Tanakh itself sometimes describes foreign speech in terms of stammering. Yeshayahu 28:11 says:

כִּי בְּלַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה וּבְלָשׁוֹן אַחֶרֶת יְדַבֵּר אֶל־הָעָם הַזֶּה

“For with stammering lips and another tongue he will speak to this people.” 

Similarly, Yeshayahu 33:19 speaks of נִלְעַג לָשׁוֹן, an incomprehensible tongue. These parallels suggest why the roots might have been associated, but they do not prove that לעז itself meant “stammer.”

The ancient Greek translation of Tehillim 114:1, the Septuagint, renders עַם לֹעֵז as λαοῦ βαρβάρου (laou barbarou), meaning “of a foreign-speaking people.” Greek barbaros, the source of English “barbarian,” originally referred to foreign speakers before acquiring negative associations. This shows that the linguistic interpretation of the verse is ancient, although we should not automatically transfer every meaning of barbaros to the Hebrew word. Cian Power, in The Significance of Linguistic Diversity in the Hebrew Bible (2022), prefers the broad sense “speaking unintelligibly” and warns against assuming that the Hebrew word necessarily implied stammering or cruelty. 

The puzzle of נועז and עז

Another intriguing comparison appears in Yeshayahu 33:19:

אֶת עַם נוֹעָז לֹא תִרְאֶה עַם עִמְקֵי שָׂפָה מִשְּׁמוֹעַ נִלְעַג לָשׁוֹן אֵין בִּינָה

“You will no longer see a brazen people, a people whose speech is too obscure to understand, whose tongue is unintelligible.” 

Saadia and Rashi associated נוֹעָז (noaz) with לֹעֵז, explaining the different first consonants through an interchange of נ and ל. Rashi compares nishkah נִשְׁכָּה (Nechemiah 13:7) with lishkah לִשְׁכָּה, both referring to a chamber.

Ibn Ezra rejected that explanation, while Radak recorded it but preferred relating נועז to strength. Klein's entry for יעז likewise derives נועז from a form of עזז, “to be strong,” giving meanings such as fierce or audacious. This is also the sense of modern Hebrew נוֹעָז, “bold.” Thus, Rashi connected נועז with foreign speech, while another tradition connected it with עַז, strength or fierceness.

Mitchell Dahood in the Anchor Bible took the latter idea in a different direction. In his Psalms III commentary, he proposed dividing and reading the consonants traditionally vocalized לֹעֵז differently, treating ל separately and connecting עז with fierceness or cruelty. In his reading, Israel departed from a cruel people, rather than a foreign-speaking one. This is different from Rashi's analysis: Rashi retains the ordinary word לועז and compares it with נועז, whereas Dahood proposes a different analysis of the consonants themselves.

Stephen A. Geller offers a third possibility in his essay “The Language of Imagery in Psalm 114,” in Lingering over Words (1990), pp. 191–194. He accepts the traditional reference to foreign speech but suggests that the psalmist may have intended wordplay. Geller also notes that biblical passages associate strangers with cruelty: Iyov 19:13 uses אַךְ זָרוּ, which Rashi connects with אכזר “cruel”, while Mishlei 5:9–10 places אַכְזָרִי beside זָרִים “strangers”. These likely reflect wordplay or an association of ideas, not an actual etymology of אכזר from זר. 

Geller also compares עַם לֹעֵז with עַם לֹא עָז, “a people without strength,” describing ants in Mishlei 30:25. He suggests that perhaps the phrase hints at an ironic reversal: once-powerful Egypt has become powerless. He too considers associations with לעג and mockery, which could evoke Egypt's humiliation.

Why describe Egypt by its language?

Even if לועז means “foreign-speaking,” why choose that characteristic of Egypt? In Devarim 28:49–50, the Torah describes a threatening nation:

יִשָּׂא יְהוָה עָלֶיךָ גּוֹי מֵרָחוֹק מִקְצֵה הָאָרֶץ כַּאֲשֶׁר יִדְאֶה הַנָּשֶׁר גּוֹי אֲשֶׁר לֹא־תִשְׁמַע לְשֹׁנוֹ

גּוֹי עַז פָּנִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִשָּׂא פָנִים לְזָקֵן וְנַעַר לֹא יָחֹן

“The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like an eagle, a nation whose language you will not understand; a brazen nation that will show no regard for the old or favor to the young.”

The Daat Mikra commentary on Tehillim 114:1 (following Radak’s commentary on the verse) points to the description in Devarim, where the nation's incomprehensible language (גּוֹי אֲשֶׁר לֹא־תִשְׁמַע לְשֹׁנוֹ) is mentioned alongside its ruthlessness (גּוֹי עַז פָּנִים). The same combination appears in Yeshayahu 33:19, where עַם נוֹעָז, a brazen people, is also described as speaking an unintelligible language. These parallels suggest that describing Egypt as an עַם לֹעֵז could evoke its threatening character without requiring לועז itself to mean “cruel.” Alter offers a similar explanation when he translates עַם לֹעֵז as “a barbarous-tongued folk” and observes that an oppressor's unintelligible language can intensify the experience of oppression.

Egyptian itself was also quite different from the languages spoken by Israel's Semitic-speaking neighbors. As Geller notes, Egyptian was not a Semitic language like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Although all belong to the broader Afroasiatic language family, Egyptian developed along a separate branch, with different vocabulary, sounds, and grammatical structures. Its differences from Hebrew were therefore greater than those of other Semitic languages.

The story of Yosef and his brothers illustrates the distinction between the languages. When Yosef recognizes his brothers, the Torah says (Bereshit 42:7):

וַיַּרְא יוֹסֵף אֶת־אֶחָיו וַיַּכִּרֵם וַיִּתְנַכֵּר אֲלֵיהֶם וַיְדַבֵּר אִתָּם קָשׁוֹת וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מֵאַיִן בָּאתֶם וַיֹּאמְרוּ מֵאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לִשְׁבָּר־אֹכֶל

“Yosef saw his brothers and recognized them, but acted as a stranger toward them and spoke harshly to them. He asked where they had come from, and they answered that they had come from Canaan to buy food.”

Later we learn (Bereshit 42:23):

וְהֵם לֹא יָדְעוּ כִּי שֹׁמֵעַ יוֹסֵף כִּי הַמֵּלִיץ בֵּינֹתָם

“They did not know that Yosef understood, because an interpreter was between them.”

This is one of the relatively rare occasions in the Tanakh when an interpreter is explicitly mentioned, despite the many encounters between biblical figures and people from other nations. The apparent language barrier helped Yosef maintain his identity as an Egyptian official, even though he understood his brothers' speech.

The story does not establish the etymology of לעז, but it illustrates the linguistic difference between Hebrew speakers and Egyptians. Even after generations in Egypt, the Israelites could have regarded Egyptian as a foreign language, whether or not they understood or spoke it themselves. It was a language distinct from their own, and describing Egypt as עַם לֹעֵז would emphasize that difference.

This distinction is also reflected in rabbinic tradition. Midrash Tehillim, commenting on our verse, says that the Israelites were redeemed in part because שלא שינו את לשונם, “they did not change their language.” Vayikra Rabbah 32:5 makes the same point. According to this interpretation, the Israelites retained their own language throughout their time in Egypt, making Egyptian the language of another people rather than their own.

The following verse, Tehillim 114:2, describes Yehudah as God's sanctuary and Israel as His dominion. The distinction between the language of Egypt and that of Israel therefore provides a fitting introduction to the emergence of Israel as a separate nation.

From לעז to לועזי

Whatever the exact meaning of the word in Tehillim, its later use is known to us. In rabbinic Hebrew, לַעַז refers to a foreign language and לוֹעֵז to a person who speaks one. Medieval writers used בלעז for the vernacular, even when that language was perfectly familiar to its speakers: Old French was not unintelligible to Rashi, but it wasn’t Hebrew.

According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, the adjective לוֹעֲזִי developed in modern Hebrew. An early example appears in the newspaper HaMagid (1857), where its editor Eliezer Lipman Silbermann used לועזיות to describe non-Hebrew newspapers. Modern Hebrew commonly uses לוֹעֲזִי for words and names of non-Hebrew origin. A מִלָּה לוֹעֲזִית is a foreign word and a שֵׁם לוֹעֲזִי is a non-Hebrew name. The expression תַּאֲרִיךְ לוֹעֲזִי extends the idea still further, referring to the secular Gregorian-calendar date rather than a Hebrew-calendar one. 

The other meaning of לעז, discussed earlier, also survives in modern Hebrew. The verb הִלְעִיז means “to slander” or “to libel,” while the expression הוֹצָאַת לַעַז refers to disparaging someone or casting aspersions on their reputation.

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chisul and chasil

The Hebrew root חסל is familiar today primarily from the verb חִסֵּל, “to eliminate, destroy, finish off.” But its meaning has changed over time.

The verb appears only once in Tanakh, in Devarim 28:38:

זֶרַע רַב תּוֹצִיא הַשָּׂדֶה וּמְעַט תֶּאֱסֹף כִּי יַחְסְלֶנּוּ הָאַרְבֶּה

“You will take much seed out to the field, but gather little, for the locust will consume it.”

The meaning of יַחְסְלֶנּוּ is clear: the locust will consume or finish off the crop. BDB defines the verb as “finish off, consume” and compares it with Aramaic חֲסַל, “come to an end,” and the Aramaic form meaning “bring to an end.” HALOT similarly gives the basic meaning “to finish.”

Moshe Held, in his essay, “Studies in Comparative Semitic Lexicography,” argues that the Hebrew and Aramaic meanings are really different uses of the same basic idea. Something can reach its end, or someone can cause it to reach its end. Money can be used up, a task can be completed, and a crop can be consumed. Hayim Tawil later adopts Held’s analysis and translates יַחְסְלֶנּוּ as “the locust shall consume it,” meaning “put an end to it.” 

Held also points to the Canaanite form ḫazilu in the Amarna letters, which he understands as meaning roughly “have been brought to an end.” 

Klein and HALOT compare Arabic laḥisa, understood in this context as “eat away,” and Yaakov Palmoni, in his essay "שמות הארבה במקרא” (Sinai, vol 27, p 283-287)  also cites Arabic evidence connected with locusts consuming vegetation. But Held rejects that comparison. He argues that the Arabic verb normally means “lick” and is more naturally related to Hebrew לחך. He also notes that neither Saadia Gaon nor al-Fasi, both of whom knew Arabic well, treated it as the equivalent of biblical חסל. 

The Tanakh also has the noun חָסִיל, a type of locust. It appears several times in destructive contexts, as in Tehillim 78:46:

וַיִּתֵּן לֶחָסִיל יְבוּלָם וִיגִיעָם לָאַרְבֶּה

“He gave their crops to the chasil and their produce to the locust.”

While אַרְבֶּה is translated as locust, the kind of locust meant by חָסִיל is uncertain. Palmoni describes it as possibly referring not to a separate species but to an immature stage of the locust, perhaps the second or third stage after molting. The Encyclopedia Mikrait, in its entry ארבה, gives the same general explanation and notes that some ancient translations use terms referring to a wingless locust.

The origin of the name chasil, however, is easier to explain. Palmoni derives חָסִיל from חסל, giving the root the meanings “to gnaw, destroy, and consume.” Klein, HALOT, Held, and Tawil also derive חָסִיל from the verb. Held and Tawil therefore understand the name as “devourer” or “consumer,” literally an insect that “puts an end to” the crop. 

This explanation already appears in the Yerushalmi, Taanit 3:6:

וְלָמָּה נִקְרָא שְׁמוֹ חָסִיל. שֶׁהּוא חוֹסֵל אֶת הַכֹּל

“Why is it called chasil? Because it finishes off everything.” This is also cited by Rashi in his commentary to Devarim 28:38 (with a slight variation).

Ibn Ezra, however, understood the relationship in the opposite direction. In his commentary to that verse, he writes:

יחסלנו — יכריתנו, והוא מן חסיל, מין ממיני הארבה

According to Ibn Ezra, the verb יַחְסְלֶנּוּ was derived from the insect name חָסִיל. Modern scholars generally favor the approach found in the Yerushalmi: the verb חסל already existed, and חָסִיל was named for what the insect does. 

The Aramaic evidence also helps explain a very different-looking use of חסל: simply “finish” or “come to an end.” Yaakov Etzion points to several examples. In the Aramaic translation of Divrei HaYamim II 4:11, the Hebrew וַיְכַל, “he finished,” is represented by וחסל.

Another example comes from Onkelos to Bereshit 21:8. The Hebrew describes Avraham’s feast:

בְּיוֹם הִגָּמֵל אֶת יִצְחָק

“on the day Yitzchak was weaned.”

Onkelos renders it:

בְּיוֹמָא דְּאִתְחֲסִיל יָת יִצְחָק

Here אתחסיל means that Yitzchak’s period of nursing had reached its end.

Etzion also cites Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:1, discussing a poet composing an alphabetic poem:

הדין פייטנא כד עביד אלפא ביתא זמנין מחסל לה וזמנין דלא מחסל לה

“When a paytan makes an alphabetic poem, sometimes he finishes it and sometimes he does not.”

In this passage, מחסל simply means completing the poem.

The same sense entered medieval Hebrew. The Ben-Yehuda dictionary gives examples such as  חסלת פרשת בראשית found at the end of Rashi’s commentary to Bereshit, as well as forms such as נחסל and הוחסל referring to works or sections that had been completed.

This is the background of the familiar words from the Pesach Haggadah:

חֲסַל סִדּוּר פֶּסַח כְּהִלְכָתוֹ
כְּכָל מִשְׁפָּטוֹ וְחֻקָּתוֹ
כַּאֲשֶׁר זָכִינוּ לְסַדֵּר אוֹתוֹ
כֵּן נִזְכֶּה לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ

Today these lines are recited near the end of the Seder, so חסל סידור פסח naturally sounds like “the Pesach Seder has been completed.”

But that was not their original setting. As discussed by Etzion, the lines come from a much longer poem by the 11th-century French scholar Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem, originally recited for Shabbat HaGadol. The poem reviewed the laws of Pesach, and these lines concluded that presentation.

In that setting, סידור פסח did not primarily refer to what we now call the Seder. It meant the arranging or presentation of the laws of Pesach. The phrase חסל סידור פסח therefore meant roughly, “The presentation of the laws of Pesach has been completed.”

This also makes the next lines clearer:

כאשר זכינו לסדר אותו
כן נזכה לעשותו

“Just as we have merited to arrange it, so may we merit to perform it.”

The laws have been set out; now the poet hopes that they will be carried out. When the passage was later incorporated into the Haggadah, it acquired an additional interpretation: just as we have conducted the Seder now, may we merit to perform the full Pesach service in Jerusalem.

Etzion suggests that the familiarity of חסל סידור פסח helped preserve חסל in Jewish linguistic consciousness even after it was no longer an ordinary Hebrew verb. That may have helped prepare the way for its modern revival.

Chaim Nachman Bialik gave the biblical verb a revival in his 1899 story אריה "בעל גוף":

“הראית, חנה, את הזוללים והסובאים ההם, איך התנפלו כארבה על כל המושם לפניהם ויחסלוהו מבלי השאיר שריד?”

“Did you see, Chana, those gluttons and drunkards, how they descended like locusts on everything placed before them and devoured it, without leaving a trace?” 

The reference to locusts is certainly intentional. Bialik’s ויחסלוהו echoes יַחְסְלֶנּוּ הָאַרְבֶּה and revives the biblical sense “consume completely, finish off.”

The wider modern usage of חיסול chisul  developed somewhat later. The linguist Yitzchak Avineri (Yad HaLashon, pp. 205-206) claimed a role in establishing forms such as מְחַסֵּל and, according to Etzion, proposed חִסּוּל in 1931 as a Hebrew equivalent of “liquidation.” Avineri defended his choice by noting that “liquidation” in practical use meant “putting an end to something,” and wrote that “Nothing is more suitable for that than חסל.”

The choice worked because the root already carried the idea of bringing something to an end. The biblical locust consumes a crop, while the Aramaic verb can describe something reaching completion. The word חיסול could therefore describe the ending of a business, a plan, unemployment, or some other situation.

At first, the modern use could be quite neutral. Elon Gilad, writing in Haaretz, notes that Hebrew newspapers in the 1930s used  חיסול מוסדות, “the closing of institutions”; חיסול שביתות, “the ending of strikes”; and חיסול אי־העבודה, “the elimination of unemployment.” The phrase מכירת חיסול, “liquidation sale,” also appeared during this period. At this stage, חיסול primarily meant bringing something to an end.

The word “liquidation,” however, also had a darker political sense, particularly in Soviet usage for eliminating opponents and groups. Hebrew חיסול gradually absorbed that meaning as well. Gilad traces its movement into political and military vocabulary, generally referring to the elimination of terrorists or terrorist cells.

As that violent sense became increasingly prominent, some of the older neutral uses faded away. Today one would normally say סיום השביתה (“the end of the strike”) rather than חיסול השביתה (“the elimination of the strike”). But the older meaning remains recognizable in expressions such as חיסול מלאי (“clearance of stock”) and חיסל את האוכל (“finished off the food”).

So if we look at the history of the root חסל, when we say חסל סידור פסח, we are hearing one of the older meanings of the verb. It does not mean that the Seder has been “eliminated.” It just means “completed.” 

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tam and tamim

Two similar adjectives appear throughout the Bible: tam (תָּם) and tamim (תָּמִים). Both come from the root תמ"ם, and both can describe someone as upright, complete, or perfect. But they aren't always used in exactly the same way. Yaakov (Bereshit 25:27) is called an אִישׁ תָּם, while Noach (Bereshit 6:9) is an אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים. Iyov (Iyov 1:1) is תָּם וְיָשָׁר, while Avraham (Bereshit 17:1) is commanded to be תָמִים. So what is the difference between the two words?

Let's start with the root תמ"ם. The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary gives the basic meaning of the verb תמם as "to be complete, finished." We find that meaning in verses such as וַיִּתְּמוּ יְמֵי בְכִי אֵבֶל מֹשֶׁה, "the days of mourning for Moshe came to an end" (Devarim 34:8). That basic idea of completion or wholeness is the starting point for both adjectives.

The words tam and tamim are two different adjective forms built from the same root. The ending of tamim may look like a masculine plural ending, but tamim itself is singular. Its plural is temimim תְּמִימִים.

TDOT suggests that tam may represent the older of the two adjective forms, with tamim becoming more common later. Other Semitic languages also have more than one form from this root. Arabic has both tāmm, "complete," and tamīm, with related meanings of completeness or being well formed. Hayim Tawil, in his Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew, notes the Akkadian cognate tamīmu, which he defines as "perfect." Interestingly, unlike Hebrew tamim, the Akkadian word is restricted to describing animals.

That is worth noting, since one of the most common biblical uses of tamim is also for animals. The Pesach offering must be a שֶׂה תָמִים, an unblemished animal (Shemot 12:5), and sacrificial animals are repeatedly required to be tamim.

But tamim has a much wider meaning in Biblical Hebrew. It can simply mean "complete." The Torah commands that there be שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימֹת, "seven complete weeks" (Vayikra 23:15). Yehoshua 10:13 refers to כְּיוֹם תָּמִים, "a whole day." The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary entry for tamim accordingly begins with the definition as something whole, with nothing lacking.

The word can also describe something where a physical blemish is not relevant. We read תּוֹרַת ה׳ תְּמִימָה, "the Torah of God is temimah" (Tehillim 19:8), and הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ, "the Rock, His work is tamim" (Devarim 32:4). Here "unblemished" would be too physical. Something like "whole," "sound," "flawless," or "unimpaired" is closer.

And as noted above, tamim can describe people like Noach and Avraham. The nation of Israel is commanded תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ (Devarim 18:13).

So I don't think we can simply say that tamim originally meant "physically without blemish" and was later borrowed as a metaphor for moral perfection. That is certainly possible, but the biblical uses already cover several different areas. It may be more useful to start with the general idea of something being whole, complete, or unimpaired. An animal can be physically whole, a period of time can be complete, an action can be flawless, and a person can be whole in character or loyalty.

The description of Noach shows how difficult it can be to pin down the exact sense. In the phrase אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, Cassuto does not take tzaddik and tamim as two separate qualities. He understands tamim as strengthening tzaddik: Noach was "completely righteous."

Cassuto compares the red heifer in Bamidbar 19:2, which is described as פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה תְּמִימָה אֲשֶׁר אֵין־בָּהּ מוּם. If temimah already meant "without blemish," he argues, then אשר אין בה מום, "which has no blemish," would be redundant. He therefore takes temimah with adumah: the cow is completely red. Similarly, Noach is completely righteous.

Nahum Sarna, in the JPS commentary on Genesis, understands the verse differently. He notes the common use of tamim for an unblemished sacrificial animal and sees the human use as an extension of that meaning. A person who is tamim is morally "unblemished," someone of "unimpeachable integrity." On that reading, tzaddik and tamim are two different descriptions of Noach.

Tawil's Akkadian tamīmu, used specifically of "perfect" animals, makes Sarna's comparison particularly interesting. But it still doesn't prove that the moral sense historically developed from the animal sense. TDOT is more cautious. It points out that tam, tamim, and the related nouns tom תֹּם and tumah תֻּמָּה overlap considerably in the Bible. Different texts may prefer different forms, but those preferences don't give us a clear distinction in meaning.

A better clue to the human meaning may come from the words found alongside them. Words from תמ"ם are often associated with yashar ישר, "straight, upright," and contrasted with crookedness, falsehood, and deceit.

For example, Tehillim 15:2 says:

הוֹלֵךְ תָּמִים וּפֹעֵל צֶדֶק וְדֹבֵר אֱמֶת בִּלְבָבוֹ

The person who walks tamim acts righteously and "speaks truth in his heart." That last phrase is significant. The person's speech matches what is in his heart.

Similarly, Tehillim 101:2 has אֶתְהַלֵּךְ בְּתָם־לְבָבִי, "I will walk with tom of heart." Here "wholeness" seems to mean that the person is not divided within himself.

This understanding is particularly helpful for תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ in Devarim 18:13. Jeffrey Tigay, in the JPS commentary on Deuteronomy, explains tamim there as "undivided in your loyalty to God, relying on Him alone." He compares Yehoshua 24:14, where Israel is told to serve God בְּתָמִים וּבֶאֱמֶת and then immediately commanded to remove the gods their ancestors had served.

That also fits the context in Devarim. The preceding verses prohibit divination, sorcery, consulting the dead, and other attempts to obtain supernatural knowledge. Being tamim with God means that one's reliance on Him should not be divided between Him and other sources of supernatural knowledge or security.

Tigay finds a related sense in הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ. He notes that tamim literally means "whole," "unimpaired," or "flawless," but here the sense is "reliable" or "faithful." God's actions are tamim because there is nothing defective or compromised about them.

So tamim has a wide range in the Bible, but the meanings are connected. Something tamim is whole in the relevant respect. It may be a complete period of time, an undamaged animal, a flawless deed, an undivided loyalty, or a person of integrity.

What about tam?

The biblical use of tam is much narrower. It is overwhelmingly associated with people and their character. The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary entry for tam notes that its basic sense is "whole," like tamim, but that in the Tanakh it is generally used figuratively of a person's character.

The clearest example is Iyov, who is introduced as אִישׁ תָּם וְיָשָׁר (Iyov 1:1). The pairing of tam with yashar points to integrity, blamelessness, or uprightness.

The description of Yaakov is less obvious:

וְיַעֲקֹב אִישׁ תָּם יֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים

(Bereshit 25:27)

Translations have offered "plain," "quiet," "blameless," and "simple." These each point to different possible aspects of Yaakov’s personality. 

There are also a few verses that show that tam was not completely limited to moral character. In Shir HaShirim, the beloved is called יוֹנָתִי תַמָּתִי, "my dove, my tamati" (Shir HaShirim 5:2; see also 6:9). The meaning is close to "my perfect one." 

So already in the Bible, the difference between tam and tamim is more a matter of tendency than a strict division. Tamim is the broad, productive word. It can describe animals, periods of time, actions, loyalty, and people. Tam overlaps with it, but is much more strongly associated with a person's character.

In Rabbinic Hebrew, a new technical use of tam appears in the expression shor tam שור תם. A shor tam is an ox that has not been established as habitually dangerous, in contrast to a shor muad שור מועד (see, for example, Mishnah Bava Kamma 2:4). The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary describes it as an animal in which no bad disposition has yet become known. Here tam seems to mean something like “ordinary” or “still in its normal state,” before dangerous behavior has become an established trait. That sense is not identical to the biblical “upright” or “whole,” but it still fits reasonably well with the idea of an animal whose nature is presumed sound or normal unless repeated behavior proves otherwise. 

Perhaps the most famous rabbinic tam is the third of the Four Sons in the Haggadah:

אֶחָד חָכָם, וְאֶחָד רָשָׁע, וְאֶחָד תָּם, וְאֶחָד שֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ לִשְׁאוֹל.

The tam asks only מַה זֹּאת?, “What is this?” The chacham, by contrast, asks the much more detailed question מָה הָעֵדוֹת וְהַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים. So the tam is clearly the less intellectually sophisticated of the two.

The textual history makes this even clearer. In the parallel tradition in the Jerusalem Talmud, the third son is called tipesh טיפש (“dull, stupid”) rather than tam. David Henshke, in Mah Nishtanah? (p. 358), notes that the manuscript versions of the Mekhilta also read tipesh, while the printed edition has tam, apparently under the influence of the familiar Haggadah text. Yosef Tabory cautions that we cannot know with certainty which term was original, but Henshke argues that tipesh is more likely to be earlier: it is easier to understand a harsh term being softened to tam than the reverse.

Daniel Goldschmidt makes essentially the same suggestion in his Haggadah commentary (p. 28), writing that tipesh was replaced by tam, apparently so as not to insult simple people. Kasher, in his Haggadah commentary (p. 120), also notes the Mekhilta’s reading tipesh and points to Rashi’s comment on Shemot 13:14, where the child who asks מה זאת is described as a tipesh, one who “does not know how to deepen his question” and therefore simply asks, “What is this?”

If tam did replace tipesh, it was a fitting substitute. The child remained intellectually unsophisticated, but tam carried more positive associations of sincerity, uprightness, and lack of guile. This also suggests that the Haggadah may not prove that tam itself independently developed from “whole” all the way to “simple-minded.” Rather, a word already associated with guilelessness may have been chosen as a gentler label for a child who had previously been called tipesh.

Medieval commentators help explain why tam worked so well in that role.

Rashi, commenting on Yaakov's אִישׁ תָּם in Bereshit 25:27, writes:

“His heart was like his mouth; someone who is not sharp at deceiving others is called tam.”

Rashi is not saying that Yaakov lacked intelligence. The point is that he lacked duplicity. What was in his heart matched what came out of his mouth. That is very close to the biblical idea of integrity that we saw earlier.

And it provides a natural connection to the later meaning. Someone who is sincere is not duplicitous. Someone who does not deceive others is guileless. Someone who is guileless may also appear unsophisticated or naïve.

Rashi gives another useful interpretation of the related tamim. On Devarim 18:13, he writes:

“Walk with God be-temimut, look to Him, and do not investigate the future.”

Here the meaning is not intellectual simplicity. It is wholehearted reliance, very close to Tigay's "undivided loyalty."

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch on Bereshit 17:1 develops that idea further. He understands tamim as something complete, with neither too much nor too little. When applied to a person's relationship with God, it describes someone whose attention is wholly directed toward serving Him.

Hirsch then makes an interesting observation. Such a person might actually be easier for others to deceive, because he is not occupied with calculating their hidden motives. Hirsch does not define tamim as "naïve," but his explanation does show how wholeheartedness and straightforwardness can lead to guilelessness and lack of suspicion.

At this point the Modern Hebrew sense becomes especially interesting.

The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary entry for tam records later uses in which the word describes someone unsophisticated or not especially clever. This is much closer to the sense associated with the tam of the Haggadah.

But tamim eventually moved into the same territory. The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary entry for tamim notes that the word was also used in the sense of someone simple or naïve. The related noun temimut likewise came to mean naïveté. In Modern Hebrew, when tamim describes a person, it commonly means “naïve,” “innocent,” or “too trusting,” rather than “perfect.” 

So tam and tamim never developed completely separate meanings. Instead, their different patterns of use gave them different aspects of meaning: tamim remained the broader word, while tam became particularly associated with a person's character and, eventually, simplicity and guilelessness. And behind both, even after all of those later developments, we can still see the original idea of being whole. .

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