Sunday, July 26, 2020

beged and begidah

A number of readers have written to ask about a connection between beged בגד - "garment" and begida בגידה - "betrayal."  Begida derives from the root בגד - "to betray," which is spelled the same as beged. 

Klein provides a connection in his entry for the root בגד:


Probably denominated from בֶּגֶד (= clothing, garment) and literally meaning ‘to cover with, or as with, a garment’, ‘to conceal’. For sense development compare מעל (= to act unfaithfully, to behave treacherously), which probably derives from מְעִיל (= upper garment, coat); compare also Arab. labisa (= he put on a dress, clothed, dressed), and labasa (= he disguised, he confused), labbasa (= tangle, confusion).

In addition to Klein's mention of meil מעיל - "coat" and me'ilah מעילה - "treachery, embezzlement", I would also add bad בד- "linen" and badah בדה - "to lie, concoct." In fact, English also has that same pairing in fabric and fabricate, and the two meanings of "cloak" (a kind of garment and "to hide, conceal.")

And previously, we've discussed one more: the root חלף - "to change" gives us chalifa חליפה - "change of clothes, suit of clothes", and that verb is also associated with deception (see Bereshit 31:7).

The common thread to all of these is that clothing covers us up, and that cover up can be a source of deception and falsehood. Another theory says that like the "change" of clothes, deceit is considered temporary and unreliable (certainly to the victim), whereas truth is permanent and faithful. 

No comments:

Post a Comment