eser

The Hebrew word for ten is eser עשר (and the masculine form is asarah עשרה). Does this number derive from an earlier word?

Klein follows the BDB, and writes about the root עשר:

The orig. meaning of this base prob. was 'gathering, collection, union'. cp. Arab. 'ashara (= he formed a community), 'ashirah ( = tribe), ma'ashar (=a group of ten men). Accordingly, Heb. עשר (eser), Arab. 'ashr, etc. prob. meant orig. 'a group collection', whence 'a group of ten', and ultimately 'ten'.

Rav Hirsch (Bereshit 14:20) follows the same line of thought, and mentions that other similar sounding roots also have related meanings: אסר, אצר, עצר, אזר, עזר.

Steinberg, in Milon HaTanach, has a different theory. He says that עשר is related to עצר, meaning "to stop". He therefore writes that eser got it's name because it is where you "stop" counting (when you're counting on your fingers.)

Strong takes a slightly different approach. He writes:

A primitive root (ident. With ashar); to accumulate

Should we accept the connection with the words ashir עשיר - wealthy, and osher עושר - riches? At first we might reject this approach because one has the letter sin and the other has the letter shin. But we can see here that many Semitic languages have the "sh" sound in their word for ten: esher in Akkadian, `asharah in Arabic.

So to determine if there is a connection, we should use Horowitz's advice (and Lonnie's Biblical Hebrew teacher's), and see how each term is used in Aramaic. Ten in Aramaic is עסר (asar), where rich in Aramaic is עתיר (atir) - a term still used in Modern Hebrew.

So it would seem that Strong's theory is hard to accept. However, the Rabbis did make use the similarities between "ten (or tenth/tithe") and "riches" to provide a play on words.

Jastrow provides two examples. One is from Shir HaShirim Raba:
אם זכיתם תעשירנה ואם לאו תעשירנה - "If you deserve well 'you make her rich', if not 'you reduce her to one tenth'.

The other source, from Shabbat 119a and Taanit 9a would seem to provide an opposite message:

עשר בשביל שתתעשר - "Give tithes in order that you become rich".

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tesha

The Hebrew word for nine is tesha (pronounced more like "taysha") תשע, and the masculine form is tisha תשעה (as in Tisha B'Av). Philologos discusses the masculine / feminine forms here, along with a joke about:

newly religious Israeli who informs his boss that he isn't coming to work the next day because it's "Tesha be'Av."

He (who is he? she?) uses this column to present a theory about why numbers have a different gender pattern than nouns, verbs and adjectives:

The reason for this odd turnabout, which exists in Arabic and other Semitic languages as well, is obscure and goes back to the prehistory of the Semitic family. A hint can perhaps be found in certain languages of the Cushitic group, a large family in the Afro-Asiatic phylum to which Semitic belongs. There are some Cushitic languages in which nouns have the gender of their adjective reversed when they go from the singular to the plural. Thus, for instance, in Sidamo, a language spoken in the highlands of East Africa, the adjective ko, "this," is used with a singular masculine noun and te, "these," with a masculine plural, whereas the order is reversed with feminine nouns, te modifying the singular and ko the plural. Something similar seems to have affected the numbers in proto-Semitic.

I have to admit, I don't entirely understand it myself.

As I've mentioned earlier, I don't think that the words for most numbers in Hebrew derived from earlier sources. But Strong does provide an interesting theory:

perhaps from sha'ah through the idea of a turn to the next or full number ten

I suppose this would be similar to the Roman numeral IX being nine - almost ten. According to Steinberg שעה sha'ah has it's roots in the word תעה, meaning to become lost. He defines שעה as to look around, turn from place to place. Steinberg says it is the source of שעשע - to take delight (although Klein does not agree.) In modern Hebrew, we have the derivative hashaya השעיה - "suspension, temporary removal".

Sha'ah meaning "hour" is unrelated.

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shmoneh

The Hebrew word for the number eight is שמונה - shmoneh. A word that might seem to have the same root is shemen שמן - "fat, oil". Are they connected?

Strong seems to think so:

apparently from shamen through the idea of plumpness; a cardinal number, eight (as if a surplus above the "perfect" seven);

I suppose the idea here is similar to the slang phrase in English - "everything else is gravy".

And there are no shortage of drashot about Chanuka that connect the number eight (the days of
Chanuka) with shemen (the oil used in the miracle.)

But I'm inclined here to accept Horowitz's opinion. He writes:

Two different sounds are represented by the Hebrew letter ש (shin). One is originally and really ש (shin); the other is a "th" sound that coalesced into ש (shin) in Hebrew. Scholars write this second sound ת (tav). Here, if you have studied a little Talmud, you will be familiar with many Hebrew words that Have ש (shin) in them but in Aramaic are written with a ת (tav) ... So, therefore, don't try to connect the following roots that have ש (shin) in them ...

שמן (shamen) - fat
שמונה (shmonah) - eight. The ש here was originally a "th". In Aramaic the word eight is תמני.

By the way, according to Klein, the Hebrew word for octopus, tmanun תמנון - derives from the Aramaic tmanya תמניא (eight) and nun נון (fish).

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sheva

The Hebrew number for seven is שבע - sheva. A homonymic root is שבע - "to swear, to take an oath". Is there a connection between the two? There seems to be. Klein says the verb derives from sheva (seven) and "prob. meaning lit.: 'to bind oneself by seven things, or by seven oaths'." Steinberg writes that the number seven was holy to the ancient peoples, based on their view that there were seven planets (they included Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). The connection between "seven" and "oath" becomes clear in the stories relating to the founding of Beer Sheva, both with Avraham and with Yitzchak. The name appears both as meaning "Well of Seven" and "Well of Oath".

Of course a major derivative of sheva is shavua שבוע - meaning week. R' Hirsch goes so far as to say that the connection mentioned above between seven and oath is also related to shavua: "An oath thus obligates a person through everything that was made in the seven days of creation " (Bereshit 21:31).

One last note: an occasional error (found here for example) is to think that the mourning period known as shiva derives from the Hebrew root for sitting - ישיבה. The actual root is the masculine form of the number - שבעה - shiva, for the "seven days of mourning."

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shesh

The Hebrew word for six is shesh שש (masc. shisha שישה). The Hebrew and English words sound similar, and in other languages there is even a greater resemblance - seis in Spanish, sheshi in Lithuanian, and shesh itself in Persian.

(Persian is the origin of the shesh in shesh-besh, the Hebrew term for backgammon. Besh is five in Turkish, and according to Stahl, those two numbers are used because they are the highest ones on the die, and are taken from two separate languages because of the rhyme.)

Is there a connection between the Semitic languages and the Indo-European ones here? There are those who use this to prove their theory that Hebrew is the source of all languages, but most find the general theory far-fetched, and it is included here in a list of "false cognates". This article , from the 1911 EncylcopediaBritannicaa claims that:

Six is in Hebrew shesh, almost exactly like the Sanskrit and modern Persian shash, the Latin sex, &c. But the Indo-European root is sweks, or perhaps even ksweks, whereas the Semitic root is shidth, so that the resemblance is a purely accidental one, produced by phonetic change.

However, in the sci.lang newsgroup there was a serious discussion about the development of shesh. One poster claimed there that Indo-European borrowed the word from Semitic. But haven't we said earlier that words for numbers should be so basic that no borrowing would be required? His response is that perhaps the original Indo-European counting system was base 5 (the number of fingers in the hand), similar to Roman numerals. I have no conclusion one way or another. Perhaps a reader has access to further research on the subject?

Two homonyms that aren't related to the number six are shesh (the fabric) and shayish שיש(marble). Shesh the fabric refers to white linen, and despite the drasha in Yoma 71b that connects it to the number six (a six ply linen thread) - Klein and Steinberg point out that both shesh (linen) and shayish are originally Egyptian words. (Perhaps related to each other, both being white?)

One interesting possible derivative of shesh is the Hebrew word for lily - שושנה / שושן shoshana (or shoshan). This is a common name for women in Hebrew, and is the source of the English name Susan. Ibn Ezra connects shoshana to shesh in his commentary on Shir HaShirim 2:2 -

It is a white flower of sweet but narcotic perfume, and it receives its name because the flower has, in every case, six [shesh] petals, within which are six long filaments.

Klein backs up this theory, tracing shoshan to the Akkadian shushu - six-sided.



From this picture (click for larger version) we can see exactly where the name came from.

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chamesh

The Hebrew word for the number five is חמש - chamesh. Another set of words that would seem to have the same root are chamush חמוש - armed and tachmoshet תחמושת - ammunition. Is there a connection between them?

The earliest source that might provide an answer is Shmot 13:18 - וַחֲמֻשִׁים עָלוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם. "Bnei Yisrael went up, chamushim, from the land of Egypt". Most translators and commentaries explain chamushim here as meaning "armed". (There are some exceptions. The Septuagint translates chamushim as "the fifth generation", despite translating chamushim in Yehoshua 1:14 as "armed". Apparently the unusual translation is due to the difficulty explaining the source of the armaments. And as far as the midrash that Rashi quotes, that only one fifth of Bnei Yisrael left Egypt, it is appropriate to quote Ibn Ezra's response: "We have enough trouble explaining to the Arab scholars how 55 males could have 600,000 males over the age of 20 within 210 years - and there's even more when you include women and children!")

So is there a connection between the two meanings of חמש? Klein believes that there may be. In his entry for חמוש, he writes:

Of uncertain origin. It is possibly related to חמשה (= five), and refers to the division of the army into five parts: van, body, rear and two wings. Hence related to Arab. hamis (= army; properly 'army divided into five parts') from hams (= five.)

Steinberg, in his Milon HaTanach, says that חמש in Arabic means "collection and connection", and this is the source of the number chamesh, which means "clenching of the five fingers". He gives examples from other languages where the same word means hand and five, for example piast' and piat' in Russian. He therefore explains the meaning of chamush as armed, because the soldiers are gathered and collected together. (We saw something similar in our explanation of the connection between lechem and milchama.)

I thought perhaps there was a similar development in English, between arm (limb) and arm (weapon), but although they come from the same Indo-European root, there doesn't seem to be the same type of sense development as in Hebrew.

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arba

The Hebrew word for four is arba ארבע (masculine arba'ah ארבעה). The root of the word is רבע, which leads to such words as reva רבע - quarter, rvi'i רביעי - fourth, and m'ruba מרובע - square. This is fairly straightforward.

However, as we progress in our discussion of numbers, many words for numbers will appear to be very similar to other Hebrew words. In some cases it is just a coincidence, and we will be able to prove it. In other cases the connection is much more strong. There are those that claim that the words for numbers derive from these other roots. In general, I am not inclined to accept these theories - although I will present them here for you to view for yourselves. If anything, I think it is more likely that the words for numbers came first. Hebrew is an ancient language, and it seems very unlikely that Hebrew would lack such basic words as the numbers from one to ten, and need to borrow them from other words.

Arba is a good example of this discussion. There is another meaning for the root רבע - to lie down, mostly for animals and as Klein writes "in Heb. it usually refers to copulation, mostly unnatural." Its cognate is the root ravatz רבץ (the ayin and tzadi switch in Hebrew) - also meaning to lie down or to crouch, generally for animals. Klein makes no connection between "to lie down" and "four", but others do. Steinberg, in the Milon HaTanach, writes that ravatz means to lie on hands and feet - on "all fours".

Strong (or is it the BDB?) writes that רבע is:

A primitive root (rather identical with raba' through the idea of sprawling "at all fours" (or possibly the reverse is the order of deriv.).

As I mentioned earlier, I think it is much more likely that "sprawling on all fours" derives from the number than the other way around.

Another meaning of רבץ / רבע is "to irrigate, to sprinkle". Klein does not appear to connect this root with either previous meaning. Jastrow does connect "to lie with" and "to inundate for the sake of improving the soil" - both have the meaning "to cover". From the meaning "to irrigate", Jastrow derives the term to teach Torah - מרביץ תורה - marbitz torah. This is the origin of the name of the prestigious Biblical studies journal, Tarbiz.

In colloquial Hebrew, marbitz also has the meaning "to hit, to spank", I assume because it may cause someone to lie down on the ground. In even more recent slang, marbitz means "to really do or make something". Rosenthal includes such entries as:

הרבצנו מיץ תפוזים - we drank a lot of orange juice
הרביץ הופעה - dressed very impressively
להרביץ קפה - to make coffee
נרביץ תמונה - let's take a picture

I suppose the best slang equivalent in English would be "knock". To "knock out" can mean "to hit" or "to exert or exhaust (oneself or another) to the utmost" and "to produce in abundance".

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shalosh

The feminine form of three in Hebrew is שלוש shalosh, and the masculine form is שלושה shlosha. All the numbers from three to ten follow this pattern, where the masculine ends in ה ָ (ah) and the feminine does not. This is the exception to the general trend - with most nouns, verbs and adjectives the feminine ends in ה ָ (ah) and not the masculine. What's the story here?

As of now, the only explanation I could find is in Steinberg's Milon HaTanach (in the entry for ארבע). He says he discusses it more in מערכי לשון עבר - Maarchei Lashon Avar 127, 28 - which was published in 1884. He claims that originally the suffix ה ָ (ah) was used for both masculine and feminine numbers. He gives examples from Melachim I 7:30, Yechezkel 7:2 and Yirmiyahu 36:23. In time when they began differentiating between genders for numbers, they dropped the last syllable in the feminine form. He says a similar development occurred with the male word for "you" - אתה atah, and the feminine את at.

A derivative of shalosh is shalish שליש. This word has three meanings:

a) A dry measure of volume (found in Tehilim 80:6, and Yishayahu 40:12). Klein states it is likely a third of an ephah.

b) A musical instrument, as mentioned in Shmuel I, 18:6. This was either three-sided (like the triangle in English) or three-stringed.

c) An officer in the army, first used in the Torah to describe Egyptian officers, and still used today in the IDF. There are those who claim that the word is not connected to the number three (Onkelos, Rashi on Shmot 14:7) and the Daat Mikra mentions that shalishim in Ugaritic refers to soldiers who were trained to shoot arrows from a moving chariot. However, there are two other theories that do connect shalish to shalosh. One claims that the shalish was third in command, and another theory states that there were three soldiers in every chariot.

Another derivative of shalosh is shilshom שלשום - the day before yesterday. Klein says it literally means "three days ago".

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shnayim

The Hebrew word for two is shnayim (shnaim) שניים. The feminine form is shtayim (shtaim) שתיים, and just like with the switch between echad and achat, we need to explain this one as well.

I have seen two explanations as to how the gender transformation developed. According to Steinberg in his Milon HaTanach, the original form was shintayim שנתים, but as we've seen before, the nun has a tendency to drop out of the middle of words.

Klein, however, writes that:

According to the opinion of several scholars, שתים is the abbreviation of אשתים. If it were really so the 'daghesh' in the ת of שתים would be accounted for. I am convinced that שתים is really the shortened form of אשתים and owes its form to the masculine equivalent שנים. I am of the opinion that אשתים is nothing but the dual form of עשתי, אשתי (=one), related to Akka. ishten (=one). אשתים as the dual of אשתי, accordingly lit. means 'two ones' (i.e. 'one taken twice'). cp. מאתים (=two hundred), אלפים (=two thousand), etc.

I have to admit that I'm not sure I follow Klein's entry, and I believe there might be a typographical error. Is he convinced that shtayim comes from eshtayim or not? If not, then perhaps he does agree with Steinberg.

The "several scholars" that he quotes likely includes Ibn Janach. According to this site, back in the 11th century, Ibn Janach noticed that shtayim is the only word in Hebrew that has a dagesh kal after a shva nach. (For more information about these terms, look at the Wikipedia article on Hebrew vowels.) He therefore concluded that the original form of the word was eshtayim, but the alef dropped off with time. (See also the Radak on Shoftim 16:28). The author of this essay (unfortunately I don't know who it is), mentions two other terms where the alef dropped off an original term, and the shva nach remained in place:
אשמורה > שמורה
אתמול > תמול

Steinberg also noticed this anomaly, but explains that because people were accustomed to saying shintayim, the dagesh remained in place.

Klein claims that shnayim derives from שנה - "to repeat", which also means "to teach". From here we get the word mishna משנה , and from the Aramaic cognate תנא - the Tanaim תנאים (the teachers of the Mishna.)

The Hebrew word for second (1/60th of a minute) - shniya שניה - is a loan translation from the Latin pars minuta secunda (= second small part of an hour).

The homonymic root שנה meaning "to change" is not related. According to Horowitz's approach, we can see this because of the transformation from Hebrew to Aramaic. Where שנה meaning "to repeat" becomes תנא, the root meaning "to change" maintains the shin. According to Klein, the word for year, שנה shana, originally meant 'change; period of changing seasons'.

And lastly, the word for sleep, shena שינה, derives from an entirely different root - ישן.

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echad

Since we're in the midst of counting the Omer, over the next several days let's learn a bit about the Hebrew numbers from one to ten.

The Hebrew word for one is echad אחד. The feminine form is achat אחת. How did this unusual transformation occur? Rav Yehoshua Steinberg, in his Milon HaTanach, explains. The "proper" feminine form would be achadt אחדת, but that would be very difficult to pronounce. We see this in Shmuel I 4:19 - הָרָה לָלָת "was pregnant; about to give birth". The word appears as lalat ללת instead of ללדת laledet, because the dalet is "swallowed up" by the tav. Try saying achadt, and you'll see how easily that happens.

Klein points out that אחד is related to yachad יחד and lechud לחוד. These related words lead to a large number of adjectives with similar but distinct meanings. As I often get confused between them, I thought this would be a good place to list all the ones I can think of, and their translations. (Please feel free to add additional ones in the comments.)

• echad אחד - one, single
• achid אחיד - unified, uniform
• meuchad מאוחד - united
• ke'echad כאחד - jointly, like one
• yachad יחד - together, in unity
• yachid יחיד - sole, individual
• yechidi יחידי - alone, singular
• yechidai יחידאי - unique
• yichudi יחודי - exclusive
• meyuchad מיוחד - special
• lchud לחוד - apart, singly

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