ribah

The Hebrew word for jam or jelly, ribah ריבה, was coined by the father of modern Hebrew, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. On that, everyone agrees. However, there has been debate over how he came up with the word, and if it was a good choice. Let's look at its history.

As Elon Gilad writes, the first mention of ribah was in a column by Ben-Yehuda in his newspaper, HaZvi, in 1888. To show that this was not a coinage out of whole cloth, he titled his piece "A new word that is old." Gilad summarizes Ben-Yehuda's justification for choosing the word:

In the article Ben-Yehuda set out to show how he found the word riba in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shekalim 7:9) in a passage concerning the frying of a dish call tofini. What exactly this tofini is is not at all clear, but that’s besides the point. We find a bunch of rabbis seemingly debating the recipe, when one of them says tofinei riba. Ben-Yehuda acknowledges that commentators wrote that this was a copying error and that originally the text said raka, which means “soft” - meaning that the dough was half done.

Ben-Yehuda concludes that the word riba comes from the root r-b-b and that this root means, as it means in Arabic, something condensed by heating. It's a root that gave Arabic the word murabab - jam. “Thus, we gained a new word that is old for a kind of sweets, for the kinds of fruit cooked in sugar, in honey, and it is riba,” Ben-Yehuda concluded.

However, looking at the original text of Ben-Yehuda's column (page 4), I think Gilad's explanation could use some clarification. Here's what Ben-Yehuda wrote:

My understanding is that Ben Yehuda claimed that those who felt the text should read raka רכה were in error. He relies on the parallel text in the Babylonian Talmud (Menachot 50b) which has the word with a bet - raba רבה. He relies on Rashi's explanation on the passage in Menachot, which says that raba means "a lot", so it should be baked more than once.

But then he goes on to reject that approach as well, and says that the word should be read as riba ריבה, not raba, according to the the text in the Jerusalem Talmud. And for this he quotes the Arabic cognate. 

As Klein writes, the Arabic verb rabba means "he reared, increased, originally 'he made thick or dense,'" and rubb means "thickened juice of fruit", which led to mirabb - "jam, preserved fruit."

And so Ben Yehuda concludes that this is how he understands the Talmudic passage - the tofini is not repeatedly cooked, but rather made thick by cooking. 

Ben-Yehuda's coinage, and particularly his interpretation of the text in the Talmud, aroused the ire of another pillar of modern Hebrew - the writer S.Y. Agnon. In his 1943 novel Shevuat Emunim ("Betrothed"), Agnon writes about pre-World War I Jaffa, and says that in the evenings they would drink tea and eat preserves, and then adds:

If some intellectual were present, he would make fun of the hotel-keeper who had misunderstood a Talmudic word, and called fruit preserves 'jam.'

This was clearly a jab at Ben-Yehuda. Not only does Agnon say that it is a mistake to call preserves (for which he uses the older word mirkahat מרקחת), but he refers to him as a "hotel keeper." In the Hebrew, that phrase is baal hamalon בעל המלון. Ben-Yehuda was the author of the first modern Hebrew dictionary, and so could have been known as the baal hamilon בעל המילון (literally, "master of the dictionary.") But Agnon rejected Ben-Yehuda's switching raba for riba in the Talmudic passage, and made the same vowel switch back from milon to malon.

Many have also criticized Ben-Yehuda's rejection of the scholars who claimed that the word in Shekalim should be read raka. According to them, that word represents the more accurate texts of the passage (as well as the text in Menachot). And perhaps for that reason, when Ben-Yehuda's dictionary was published after his death, neither the entry for riba, nor the notes by Tur-Sinai mention the Shekalim passage at all, but rely entirely on the Arabic cognate, and other medieval Hebrew words based on the same root:

We've now shown Ben-Yehuda's original justification for choosing riba for jam, and the revised explanation in his dictionary. A third report, found often in Ultra-Orthodox circles (who in his lifetime and even today don't have much respect for Ben-Yehuda), attributes Ben-Yehuda with a poor understanding of basic Talmudic terminology. There are a few different versions, but they generally say that he read a passage like this:

"מאי ריבה? מיני מתיקה"

Mai ribah? Minei metika.

and from it coined the word ribah. If that were so, it would indeed be a gross misreading of the text. The phrase mai ribah is found in a number of Talmudic passages (for example Sotah 16b), and means, "What does it include?" This is because ריבה riba in this case literally means "an extension of scope, widening qualification". So while the passage really meant "What does [this case] include? Sweet things", Ben-Yehuda thought it meant "What is riba? Sweet things", and so used it to refer to jam.

The problem is not only as we've seen did Ben-Yehuda not use that passage as his reason for the coinage, but there is no such passage anywhere in Talmudic literature (nor is there for any of the variants of this story). It's rather ironic that people who are trying to make fun of Ben-Yehuda for not understanding the Talmud are actually proving their own ignorance instead. They should really leave the satire to people like Agnon...

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cameo and kamea

I was recently asked if there is a connection between the English word "cameo" and the Hebrew word קמיע kamea - "amulet." 

If that seems like a strange suggestion, perhaps you aren't familiar with the background of "cameo." While today it usually means "a small theatrical role usually performed by a well-known actor and often limited to a single scene," that's not the original sense. (Modern Hebrew also has hofa'at kamea הופעת קמע meaning a "cameo appearance, but that is a much more recent usage.) The original sense can be found in this entry from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

early 15c., kaadmaheu, camew, chamehieux and many other spellings (from early 13c. in Anglo-Latin), "engraving in relief upon a precious stone with two layers of colors" (such as onyx, agate, or shell) and done so as to utilize the effect of the colors, from Old French camaieu and directly from Medieval Latin cammaeus, which is of unknown origin, perhaps ultimately from Arabic qamaa'il "flower buds," or Persian chumahan "agate."

In 19c. also used of other raised, carved work on a miniature scale. Transferred sense of "small character or part that stands out from other minor parts" in a play, etc., is from 1928, from earlier meaning "short literary sketch or portrait" (1851), a transferred sense from cameo silhouettes. A cameotype (1864) was a small, vignette daguerreotype mounted in a jeweled setting.

Since cameo originally meant a type of jewelry, that's much closer to the sense of "amulet." Yet, none of the suggestions mentioned in this entry can be connected to kamea. (I haven't been able to find any Hebrew cognate to the qamaa'il referenced above. In fact, the claims is disputed entirely in this article, saying that qamaa'il is not found in Arabic dictionaries.)

However, that doesn't mean a connection isn't possible. Let's first look at the origin of kamea, to see if it can bring us closer to cameo. (Ben Yehuda points out that the original pronunciation was kamia, but the transition to kamea may have been from the Italian "cameo.") Here's Klein's entry:

קָמֵֽיעַ m.n. PBH (pl. קְמֵיעִים, also קֽמֵיעוֹת) amulet. [Related to Aram. קֽמֵיעָא, Syr. קֽמִיעָא, Mand. קמאהא (= amulet), Arab. qama‘a (= he tamed, curbed, bridled).]

קְמֵיעָה f.n. MH amulet. [A secondary form of קָמֵיעַ.]

And while he doesn't directly link the two, a connection between kamea and the root קמע is likely. He had said that kamea is related to an Arabic root meaning "tamed" or "bridled", and here is his entry for קמע:

קמע to bind, tie up.

Related to Aram. קְמַע (= he bound, tied up).

To bridle is to tie up a horse with reins, so I can see a connection between kamea - "bridled" and קמע - "to tie up." An amulet, as jewelry, is also "tied up" to the wearer, so all of these meanings appear to be related. (Kohut, in the Aruch HaShalem, entry קמע, points out that just as the Greek word for amulet, periamma, comes from amma, "knot", so too does kamea come from קמע, "to tie.")

He then goes on to say that kim'ah קמעה - "a little" may also derive from the same root:

קִמְעָה, קִמְעָא adv. PBH a little. [Aram. קִמְעָא; according to some scholars prob. related to Arab. qamā‘, qamā‘a (= smallness, littleness). It is more probable, however, that it derives from the v. קמע, equivalent of Heb. קמץ (= he took a handful). See קמץ ᴵ.]

(We discussed the Hebrew equivalent קמץ kamatz in this earlier post.)

Kim'ah is the root of the modern Hebrew word kim'oni קמעוני - "retail", just as the English word retail originally meant "to sell in small quantities."

All this is nice, and would seem to point us in the direction of a connection between kamea and cameo, but as we've seen many times here before, words that appear to be connected do not necessarily share a common origin. There are sources out there that say the two are directly connected, but do not offer any proof.

However, I did find one, admittedly older, theory that ties the two words together. There was a claim, mentioned in early editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, that cameo derives from the Arabic kamea, "amulet", which would clearly be cognate with the Hebrew. For example, this is in the entry from the 1902 edition:

The word cameo is generally regarded as being derived from the Arabic camea, a charm or amulet

But as this article points out, the word camea was not found "with this significance in the Arabic dictionaries" and "in all probability, the writer of the Encyclopedia Britannica thought of the Aramaic camea." It also notes that later editions of the encyclopedia dropped that etymology.

That's certainly possible. I did find a number of mentions from 19th century books that also mentioned an Arabic form of camea, but it's possible they were all mistaken separately or influenced from one source that mixed up the Aramaic and Arabic. 

But that doesn't make me think that an etymology is unlikely. We've seen relevant cognates in a few Semitic languages, and all the meanings seem related to the same sense of "amulet." If a more convincing etymology for cameo is found, then we can perhaps drop the connection to kamea. But for now, it still seems like a reasonable proposition.

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email subscriptions update

As I mentioned in an earlier post, FeedBurner, the service that provided email subscriptions to Balashon, will be ending that service in a few months.

I've set up a new service with Mailchimp, to provide the same option of receiving Balashon posts by email. 

If anyone would like to subscribe that way, you can easily do so by entering your email address in the box on the right margin of this page, under Subscribe to Balashon by email.

For those who were already subscribed via FeedBurner, I've migrated your subscriptions to Mailchimp. If you do not wish to receive those emails, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe from this list link at the bottom of every email.

Thanks for your patience during this transition, and I hope to have some new posts with regular Balashon content up soon!

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still working on the email subscriptions

I'm still working on getting the new email subscription service working, so I need to do some additional test posts.

To make this a little more interesting, I'll provide some links about other things I've been working on.

For over a year, I've been writing for 929 - the project that studies a chapter of Bible each day. 

You can read my posts, which generally talk about words, here.

I also write for HaMizrachi, a magazine with articles about Torah and other subjects, printed around the holidays. Again, I write about words, and while there isn't an index of all my articles, my latest one - for Yom HaAtzmaut - is here.

Aside from writing about words, I also like to write about the Bible and Jewish thought. I've published in Tradition, Lehrhaus, Hakirah, and JBQ. I've put everything I've published on my Academia.edu profile. Feel free to browse and let me know what you think.

Ok, that's good for now, I probably should save some more in case I need additional posts like this...

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changes for email subscribers

Just a little maintenance here. Feedburner, the service that provided email subscriptions to Balashon, will be ending that service in a few months. So I am in the process of investigating new options and will hopefully migrate all subscribers soon. 

If you don't subscribe by email, you can ignore this message. Thanks!

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mashal and moshel

The 929 Project, which covers a chapter of the Tanakh every day over a 3.5 year cycle, will be starting the book of Mishlei (Proverbs) soon. Since I write a weekly entry for 929, I thought I would take the opportunity here to look into the word mashal משל - the source of the book Mishlei.

In the Bible, the root משל has two meanings - "to rule" and "to resemble, to make like, to speak in parables." The first sense, to rule, appears 81 times as a verb, and also has noun forms, like moshel מושל - "ruler. governor" and memshala ממשלה - meaning "rule, dominion" in Biblical Hebrew, and "government" in Modern Hebrew.

The second meaning occurs 17 times as a verb, and an additional 39 as a noun, generally translated as "proverb" (giving the name to the biblical book.)

Is there a connection between the two meanings? Many older sources do make a connection. Here are a few examples:

Rabbi Hirsch, on Bereshit 4:9, writes that the basic meaning of mashal is "to declare what something is and should be, to give its character and designation. Hence: to command, to rule. […] Hence, also the Proverbs of Shlomo: saying which tell us what men and things are and should be. So in general. But hence mashal also means quite specially such a saying or sentence whose meaning refers not to the things actually described in it, but they are used metaphorically to refer to some general fact or teaching, to describe the character or designation of something else, i.e. a parable."

Jastrow has the original meaning as "to handle, to touch" (he brings the example of Yoma 46a - "the fire had taken hold of them.")  That sense developed into a) to attend, manage, control, and b) something tangible, substantial, plausible. From there it developed to "a truth substantiated by an illustration, wise saying, fable, allegory, example."

Steinberg suggests that the earlier, common meaning was "to straighten, to organize." This organization can both be done by a ruler, or by an orator, who arranges two concepts in a parable.

Gesenius, in his dictionary, writes: "Learned men have made many attempts to reconcile the significations of making like and ruling […] I have no doubt but from the signification of making like, is derived from that of judging, forming an opinion […] which is nearly allied to the notion of giving sentence, ordering, ruling."

However, more recent scholars have begun to doubt that the two meanings share a common origin. Klein, for example, lists them as two separate entries. For the meaning "to rule," he provides one cognate: the Phoenician משל. For the sense "to be like, resemble, to speak in parables," he offers a number of Semitic cognates:

Aramaic מְתַל (= was like, resembled), Syriac מְתַל (= he compared; he spoke in parables), Akkadian mashālu (= to be like), Arabic mathala (= was like, resembled, imitated), mithl (= a thing similar, resemblance, likeness), Ethiopian masala (= became like).

The substitution of the "sh" for "t/th" in many of these languages, but only for this meaning, could indicate a separate origin. (The Aramaic amatla אמתלא - "excuse, pretext" derives from the cognate מתל, and has entered Hebrew as אמתלה, with the same meaning.)

But as Prof. Chaim Cohen argued in this comprehensive article (English summary here, pp. 372-373), this may not be the case. He writes that "while a majority of Biblical scholars today derive the term משל from a primary verb מש"ל 'to be like' […] this view, despite many attempts to bolster it with additional evidence, has never been sufficiently compelling to win overall scholarly approval." He goes on to claim that the original meaning of the noun mashal is "saying" and the verb means "to express, relate." 

This understanding fits the book of Proverbs well. While many of the Proverbs are indeed parables - for example, "A passerby who gets embroiled in someone else’s quarrel is like one who seizes a dog by its ears." (Mishlei 26:17), others are simply sayings without a metaphor: "Do not envy evil men; Do not desire to be with them" (Mishlei 24:1). 

So it could well be that the original meaning of mashal was "saying" and then later developed to the more specific type of saying - the parable.

If that's the case, perhaps we can make a connection to "ruling" after all. I did not see this mentioned in the sources I read, but there are other words in Hebrew that connect ruling to speaking - see my posts on nagid נגיד and amar אמר. It would not surprise me if mashal is an additional example.

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sutro and tzair

I grew up in San Francisco, and anyone from there will recognize the name Sutro. 

Sutro Tower is giant radio and TV antenna that can be seen from most places in the city. It sits on a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro, another place with the Sutro name.

In the Sutro Historic District, on the Pacific coast, you'll find Sutro Heights Park, and it once included the Sutro Baths. And there are other places with the Sutro name in the area.

All of these places were named for Adolph Sutro (1830-1898), the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco¹. He was a collector of books, and when I lived there I heard he had a manuscript with the signature of Maimonides (now housed in Sutro Library of course).  I never visited that exhibit - maybe I'll try on my next visit.

I recently learned that this pervasive word, Sutro, actually has Hebrew origins. According to this article, "the family name is probably a writing of the Aramaic zutra." And indeed, the Hebrew entry for the catalog of his books writes Sutro as זוטרא (zutra).

The Aramaic word zutra means "small." From it we get in modern Hebrew zutar - זוטר, an adjective meaning "junior" or "minor." Klein writes that the root of zutra - זטר - is related to the root זער - "to be small", which in turn is related to the root צער - also meaning "to be small, insignificant." This last root gives us the word tzair צעיר - "young" and tzoer צוער, which appears once in the Bible (Zechariah 13:7) as "shepherd boy," and today means "cadet."

Another meaning of the root צער - "sadness, suffering" only appears in post-biblical Hebrew. In the hitpael form - הצטער - it literally means "to feel pain, remorse", and is used to say "I'm sorry" - אני מצטער ani mitztaer.

According to Klein, the two roots are related. One who is treated caused to suffer, treated shamefully, is "belittled" or "made insignificant." Yaakov Etsion, in this article, agrees that the roots are related, but suggests instead that it's not others making the mitztaer feel small, but the one suffering acts as if they are contracting, reduced in size, as opposed to someone comfortable who can relax and spread out.

While Adolph Sutro's name may have meant "small," his legacy in San Francisco is anything but insignificant, and the landmarks bearing his name are the tallest in the city.

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1 I have been informed that actually, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco was Washington Bartlett. Bartlett later converted to Christianity, but was Jewish during his term as mayor.  ^↩

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minaret and menorah

The word "minaret", meaning the tower of a mosque, is cognate with the Hebrew menorah מנורה. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

"slender, lofty turret of a mosque," typically rising by stages and having one or more projecting balconies around it, 1680s, from French minaret, from a Turkish pronunciation of Arabic manarah, manarat "minaret," also "lamp, lighthouse," which is related to manar "candlestick," a derivative of nar "fire;" compare Hebrew ner "lamp" (see menorah).

Menorah was the term for the lampstand with seven lamps first established for the roaming Tabernacle, and then later in the Temple in Jerusalem. It was famously lit again by the Maccabees, when the Temple was rededicated, after the Greeks had defiled it. This is commemorated in the holiday of Chanukah. During that holiday, a lamp is lit with additional candles every night, reaching eight candles on the last night, plus one extra (ninth) candle used to light the others. 

To distinguish between the menorah used in the Temple and what was lit in homes on Chanukah, traditionally the latter was called menorat chanukah מנורת חנוכה, although some people used menorah for both. Sephardic and Balkan Jews used the term chanukiya חנוכייה (with the accent on the second to last syllable - chanuKIya), and that term was introduced into modern Hebrew by Hemda Ben Yehuda (Eliezer Ben Yehuda's wife). 

Today in Israel menorah refers to the lamp in the Temple, the symbol of the State of Israel (which was modeled on the biblical menorah) and for "lamp" in general. Chanukiya (with the accent on the last symbol) is used for the lamp lit on Chanukah.

Menorah derives from the root  נור, and other words related to lamps also come from the same source. Ner נר means "candle" and nurah נורה means "bulb."

Another related word is sanver - "to blind." It was back formed from sanverim סנורים - "blindness" (as found in Bereshit 19:11). Klein provides the following etymology for sanverim:

According to some scholars, euphemistic use of Akka. shunwuru (= to give light). According to others סַנְוֵרִים is formed from the Siph‘el of נור (= to give light), used euphemistically.

 A sister root to נור is נהר, meaning "to shine." It is found in only a few biblical verses (e.g. Yeshaya 60:5 and Iyov 3:4). But its use in Aramaic is much more common. And just as sanverim means blindness and may have euphemistic origins, the term used in Hebrew for "euphemism" also comes from a phrase meaning blindness: סגי נהור sagi-nahor. It literally means someone with "(more than) enough light", a euphemism for a blind person. That classic case of euphemism has been extended to all euphemisms, which are known as לשון סגי נהור lashon sagi nahor.

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mafia and hiftzir

There are many theories as to the etymology of the word "mafia." One of the leading ones says it comes from the Arabic marfud - "rejected":

1875, from Italian Mafia "Sicilian secret society of criminals" (the prevailing sense outside Sicily), earlier, "spirit of hostility to the law and its ministers." A member is a mafioso (1870), fem. mafiosa, plural mafiosi, and this may be the older word in this sense. Arabic is often cited as the ultimate source (the Arabs ruled Sicily for more than two centuries in the Middle Ages), but which Arabic word is a matter of disagreement.

The immediate source of mafioso, then, would be 19c. Sicilian mafiusu, "signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising, and proud" [Gambetta], who favors as the Arabic source an adjective from marfud "rejected."

According to this source, marfud ("rejected") became the Sicilian marpiuni ("swindler") and from there to mafiusu. 

As often happens when I read etymologies of English words with Semitic roots, I wonder if there is a cognate in Hebrew. Well, this is one I would never have expected.

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To find a Hebrew word related to marfud, we need to look a seemingly unrelated Hebrew root: פצר. It appears in the Bible seven times - six of which are in the kal form - patzar. In all of those cases it means "to implore, to beg earnestly." Modern Hebrew uses the hifil form of the verb, hiftzir, to mean "implore" as well. Klein writes that it is a secondary form of the root פרץ - "to push, to break through." That root can also mean "to spread, to extend."

This sense of "spreading, extension" is how classic commentators understood the use of פצר in its seventh use, in Shmuel I 15:23. The prophet Shmuel is castigating Shaul, the king, and says:

כִּי חַטַּאת־קֶסֶם מֶרִי וְאָוֶן וּתְרָפִים הַפְצַר

This is a notoriously difficult phrase to explain. It ends with the words utrafim haftzar (our root). Rashi says it means "an addition", and in that light, ArtScroll translates the phrase as:

"For rebelliousness is like the sin of sorcery, and verbosity [haftzar] is like the iniquity of idolatry"

However, modern translations, like the JPS have a different interpretation. They offer:

"For rebellion is like the sin of divination; defiance [haftzar], like the iniquity of teraphim"

Translating haftzar as "defiance" provides symmetry with the first half of the phrase, where everyone agrees that meri means "rebelliousness." And there is linguistic support for this translation as well. 

David Yellin wrote in an essay, "Forgotten Meanings of Hebrew Roots in the Bible" (published here, and quoted by Stahl in his etymological dictionary of Arabic) that this use of the root פצר is unrelated to the other six, and based on cognates with other Semitic languages should be translated as "defiance." One of those cognates is the Arabic rafad - "to reject," which is the source of our word marfud above. 

How did he get from fatzar to rafad? Through a number of phonetic shifts. First of all, the Hebrew tz sound can become d in Arabic (for example the Hebrew רמץ remetz becomes ramida in Arabic, the source of the month Ramadan.) And then through metathesis, fadar became rafad.

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Quite a journey, no? So how can you remember that "mafia" and fatzar are cognate? Just think of a mafioso imploring someone to not be defiant...

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loco

A Spanish word that has entered English slang is loco - "crazy." The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following origin:

"mad, crazy," 1844, American English, from Spanish loco (adj.) "insane," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Arabic lauqa, fem. of 'alwaq "fool, crazy person."

The American Heritage Dictionary goes a bit further in their entry for the Semitic root lwq:

 Arabic root, to soften. loco, perhaps from Arabic lawqā, feminine singular of alwaq, bent, foolish, from lāqa, to soften.

Could this Arabic root have a Hebrew cognate? I believe there might be one.

Post-biblical Hebrew has the root לקה, meaning "to strike, to flog." The biblical equivalent is נכה - "to best, strike." The root לקה gives us the noun מלקות malkut (sometimes pronounced malkot) for "punishment by lashes," whereas the root נכה provides מכה maka, in plural מכות makkot. This last word is the name of the Talmudic tractate Makkot, which deals with the laws of punishment by lashes, and within it frequently uses the synonym malkot. (For more on the confusion between the two terms, see here.)

However, this is not the only meaning of לקה. Klein offers the following meanings: "to be stricken, be smitten, be flogged, be scourged; to be affected with disease; to be eclipsed." (This last meaning gives us the Hebrew term for "eclipse" - ליקוי likui.) 

In his Arukh HaShalem, Kohut writes that the essence of the root means "to be softened, beaten," and mentions the Arabic root that means "to soften." So it seems we have our cognate. As proof, The Arukh (the dictionary published about 800 years earlier upon which Kohut wrote his supplement) quotes a Talmudic passage (Yevamot 80b), which mentions someone who has שער לקוי se'ar lakui. The Arukh says that means he has "soft hair" (and Rashi agrees in his commentary.)

For some reason, there are many fast food restaurants called El Pollo Loco, including Israeli equivalents. While they say it means "crazy chicken," I think "softened chicken" actually sounds more appetizing...

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gerbil

The word for gerbil, the small rodent, has Semitic origins:

1849, gerbile, from French gerbille, from Modern Latin Gerbillus, the genus name, from gerbo, from Arabic yarbu. Earlier English form, jarbuah (1660s), was directly from Arabic.

Another rodent that I hadn't heard of before also gets its name from the same Arabic word - the jerboa. They aren't from the same genus or even family, but because both are small desert rodents, the Arabic name was also used:

small desert rodent, 1660s, Modern Latin, from Arabic jarbu "flesh of the loins," also the name of a small jumping rodent of North Africa. So called for the strong muscles of its hind legs.

The Arabic Etymological Dictionary finds cognates in other Semitic languages:

yarbu‘ : a rodent, jerboa [Akkadian arrabu, Syriac yarbu‘a, Ebla arrabu]

Is there also a connection to any Hebrew words? 

One possibility is that it's related to akhbar עכבר - "mouse." We discussed akhbar a few years ago, relying on the theory that it derives from the root כבר - "great." Those that connect yarbu to akhbar take a different route. I found that theory mentioned here, here, and here. While they don't map it out directly, my understanding is that the "kh/k" sound dropped out (perhaps easier to imagine knowing that it was also pronounced/spelled agbaru in Akkadian, since the g sound gets swallowed in the b sound), and then through metathesis it became arrabu. 

And while the Online Etymology Dictionary says the name of the rodent came from the strong leg muscles, the first source (an essay by Prof. Richard Steiner) posits that the root first meant "mouse" and then later meant "muscle," particularly the Achilles tendon, or hamstring. He points out that in other languages we also find the word for muscles deriving from the word for mouse, including English:

"contractible animal tissue consisting of bundles of fibers," late 14c., "a muscle of the body," from Latin musculus "a muscle," literally "a little mouse," diminutive of mus "mouse".

So called because the shape and movement of some muscles (notably biceps) were thought to resemble mice. The analogy was made in Greek, too, where mys is both "mouse" and "muscle," and its combining form gives the medical prefix myo-. Compare also Old Church Slavonic mysi "mouse," mysica "arm;" German Maus "mouse; muscle," Arabic 'adalah "muscle," 'adal "field mouse;" Cornish logodenfer "calf of the leg," literally "mouse of the leg." 

Steiner then goes on to suggest that other Hebrew words for muscle might derive from the same root, including ekev עקב - "heel" and arkuv ערקוב - "knee joint, hock."

There is another small rodent, which like the gerbil, is often kept as a pet - the hamster. The word hamster doesn't have a Semitic etymology, but the hamsters we're familiar with today do have a connection to Israel. In 1930 in Jerusalem, the zoologist Israel Aharoni successfully bred a pair of Syrian hamsters, and the hamster pets found today worldwide are descendants of his efforts.

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etzel, atzil and asli

According to Klein, the Hebrew preposition etzel אצל means "by the side of, beside, near." Milon Morfix (a more recent resource) offers "at; in the possession of; for; (literary) near, close to."  As this article by the Hebrew Language Academy points out, the word is found in Biblical sources, with additional meanings added in the Talmudic and Medieval periods. Today, according to the article, the main usage is to describe something in the area or possession of a person. 

So if you were to say that a meeting was in Esther's house, you'd say it was babayit shel Ester בבית של אסתר. But if you wanted to say the meeting was "by Esther", you'd say it was etsel Ester אצל אסתר.

Klein says that etzel actually means "side," deriving from the root אצל meaning "lay aside, set apart, reserve, emanate." That root is used today in the hifil form he'etzil האציל - "to delegate" as in the phrase ha'atzal samchuyot האצלת סמכויות - "delegation of authority."

Klein further connects the root to a Semitic root meaning "root, origin, source." The Hebrew word atzil - אציל - "nobleman, aristocrat" derives from here, originally meaning "firmly rooted." Another meaning of atzil - not frequently used in Modern Hebrew - is "joint (of the arm, elbow)", also related to the sense of "side."

Arabic also has cognates, which include 'asil - "of noble origin", coming from asl - "root, origin." This gives us the word asli, which in Arabic means "original." It has been borrowed into Israeli slang with the sense of genuine or authentic, and is often found describing food products.

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pakad

The Hebrew root pakad פקד has many meanings. Some of them seem to be opposites. For example, a mifkad מפקד is a census, where those present are counted. But someone absent is nifkad נפקד (like an AWOL soldier.) What's the story with this root?

Edward Horowitz, in his book How the Hebrew Language Grew, addresses this question (page 56):

Anyone who has studied the Bible in Hebrew or who has even only a fair familiarity with it will remember coming across the word pakad very often. It actually occurs several hundreds of times and in many seemingly unrelated senses. It would be worthwhile to tie them all together.

The root pakad has the large general senses of "to give one's attention to." From this large general meaning there have developed many specialized senses. These simply specify in detail various ways of giving one's attention.

Thus pakad means:

1. to attend to
2. to observe
3. to remember
4. to seek, and sometimes to seek in vain, i.e. to need, to miss
5. to visit, and sometimes to visit in an evil sense, i.e. to punish, usually divine punishment
6. to number
7. to put someone in charge, to appoint

The nifal [nifkad] picks up three of these senses, and means: 1) was appointed, 2) was visited upon, 3) was sought vainly, i.e. missed. The hifil [hifkid] has the meaning to appoint, and to to entrust or deposit. The hitpael [hitpaked] means "was numbered."

There are a number of nouns that come from this formidable list:

• pekuda פקודה - visitation, numbering
• pakid פקיד - overseer, officer
• pikud פיקוד - a precept, because it means something appointed to be done, a charge
• pikadon פקדון - something entrusted, a deposit
• mifkad מפקד - numbering or mustering, appointment
• tafkid תפקיד - function

A modern language cannot possibly use just one single word in these many important different senses and yet remain sharp, clear and exact. It just because of this very rich development that pakad [in the kal form] is today a beggar word; hardly anyone uses it in ordinary conversation. This word reveals the truth of the rabbinic dictum "If you grasp too much, you grasp nothing."

The hifil though, is frequently used in the sense of "to entrust." Pekuda - command, pakid - officer, and pikadon - a deposit - are also in active use.

Horowitz's book was published in 1960, so some of the meanings of the words he mentioned have changed in more recent Hebrew. For example, pakid now usually means "clerk," pikud means "command" in the military sense (like the Home Front Command - Pikud HaOref  פיקוד העורף), and tafkid usually means "role, position, task." Another military term is mifaked מפקד - "commander."

While providing many of the same meanings, Klein suggests a different etymology. He says the original meaning was probably "to miss." In English the verb "to miss" can mean both "to fail to hit" and "to long for someone." The first sense is reflected in nifkad - "not present," but that same soldier is also being looked for, perhaps longed for, and that provides many of the other meanings, where pakad means "to attend to, to visit, to observe." From there the other meanings of "to appoint," "to number," and "to command" developed.

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mesukan

A number of years ago, I discussed the root סכן and the relate words misken, sakana and sochen. One of the words I mentioned was מסוכן mesukan:

The familiar word sakana סכנה - "danger" does not appear in the Tanach (it appears frequently in Rabbinic Hebrew). But it does appear as a nifal verb once in Kohelet 10:9  יסכן - "will be harmed". In Rabbinic Hebrew we find the piel form, meaning "to expose to danger". Derivatives include sikun סיכון - "risk" and misukan מסוכן - which in the Talmud meant "in danger" but by Medieval Hebrew meant "dangerous".

Recently, I realized that I never actually explained why the meaning of mesukan would change from "endangered" to "dangerous." 

Not knowing the answer, I looked in my books and my online sources, and couldn't find any real discussion of the topic. So I did something I haven't done for a while - I wrote to the Academy of the Hebrew Language. Anyone can submit a question here (in Hebrew), and they're very generous with their time and provide comprehensive answers.

A few days later, I got an answer, which I will summarize here.

The word mesukan appears in the "passive" form in Talmudic literature. For example we find a בהמה מסוכנת behema mesukenet - a sick animal, in danger of dying, in the mishna (Beitza 3:3). In the Tosefta ( Toharot 6:7) there is mention of a sick person, referred to as mesukan. In this  literature, only people or animals are called mesukan.

Around the beginning of the 12th century, the meaning of mesukan expanded, and began to refer to things that can affect people, and as such took on the meaning of "dangerous." Rashi (Avoda Zara 28a) describes an injury as being mesukan, and Ibn Ezra (on Devarim 21:8) talks about roads that are mesukan. 

However, this new meaning was not used to refer to people or animals. When applied to them, mesukan still meant "endangered."

At the end of the 18th century, the meaning of mesukan expanded further. It began to be applied to animals, and then eventually to people as well. In modern usage, the sense of "endangered" has almost completely disappeared, and only "dangerous" remains.

This change in meaning can be seen in how it appears in dictionaries. In the Ben Yehuda dictionary (1928-1929), mesukan has both definitions, with "endangered" coming before "dangerous." In later dictionaries, such as Even Shoshan (1951), the order is reversed, reflecting the change in usage.

What was the reason for this semantic shift?

Two suggestions were offered.

One is a natural, internal development in the language, where passive verbs take on an active meaning. Examples given were the word זכור in Tehilim 103:14 (he "remembers" in the active sense), נשוי in Bava Batra 79a (a tree actively bearing fruit), and also the phrase mekubal ani מקובל אני - "I have accepted."

While these occurrences happened earlier, perhaps the change in mesukan followed the same process.

The second suggestion was influence from Arabic, where the similar word makufun can mean both "frightened" and "scary."

So perhaps one, or both, of those two pushed the word mesukan into the modern meaning of "dangerous."

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gambit and ganav

Here's one I wouldn't have ever thought of. 

"Gambit" is a ploy or strategy, used to gain an advantage.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says the origin is in Latin:

"chess opening in which a pawn or piece is risked for advantage later," 1650s, gambett, from Italian gambetto, literally "a tripping up" (as a trick in wrestling), from gamba "leg," from Late Latin gamba (see gambol (n.)). Applied to chess openings in Spanish in 1561 by Ruy Lopez, who traced it to the Italian word, but the form in Spanish generally was gambito, which led to French gambit, which has influenced the English spelling of the word. Broader sense of "opening move meant to gain advantage" in English is recorded from 1855.

However, others suggest a Semitic origin. For example, Klein writes:

French, from Spanish gambito, from Arabic janbi, 'lateral', from janb, 'side' (whence janaba, 'he put aside'), which is relate to Aramaic-Syriac gabh, gabba, 'side', Hebrew ganabh, Aram.-Syr. genabh, 'he stole', literally 'he put aside', Heb. gannabh, 'thief'.

While Klein doesn't mention it here, Kaddari does say that ganav גנב can also mean "to put aside, remove." In fact, he lists this meaning as the first entry in his dictionary, indicating that this is the original meaning, as found in this verse:

יִהְיוּ כְּתֶבֶן לִפְנֵי־רוּחַ וּכְמֹץ גְּנָבַתּוּ סוּפָה׃

Let them become like straw in the wind, like chaff carried off [genavto] by a storm. (Iyov 21:18)

This book goes one step further, and says that the Hebrew word for "back" - גב gav also derives from the same root, because the back is "still a half of the body."  Klein, however, says that gav comes from a different root - גבב, meaning "something curved."

 

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gala and chol

The English word "gala" today means "festival, celebration." But it originally meant "festive dress." Klein suggests an Arabic origin, as mentioned here:

Klein suggests the French word is from Italian gala (as in phrase vestito di gala "robe of state"), perhaps from Arabic khil'a "fine garment given as a presentation."

This garment, khila, was known as a "robe of honor," like those given to Yosef by Pharaoh (Bereshit 41:42) and to Mordechai by Achashverosh (Ester 6:10). 

The word khi'la, in turn, derives from the Arabic khala'a - "to divest [oneself of one's robe]." (It also might mean to put on the robe, and so would be an example of a contronym, a word that also means its opposite, as we discussed here.) Could this verb - "to remove, to take off, to depose" - have a cognate in Hebrew?

Very possibly. The connection may be found through a cognate: halal - "permitted" meat according to Islamic law. Just as in Hebrew, the word for permitted, mutar מותר, literally means "untied, loose," so too does the Arabic halal. (This is the opposite of haram - "prohibited, sacred," as we showed when discussing the Hebrew cognate cherem.)

Halal is allowed for use, and so could be defined as "profane" (i.e. not religiously forbidden.) In this way it is cognate with the Hebrew root חלל chalal, and the noun chol חול - both meaning "profane" (and today "secular.") Klein provides the following etymology for that root:

Aram. חֲלַל, Syr. אַחֵל (= he profaned), Arab. ḥalla (= he united, undid), ḥall (= the profane, allowed for use).

I think that there is a likely typo in Klein here, and halla should be defined as "he untied", not "he united."

Stahl provides a similar development, saying both the Hebrew and Arabic roots mean "released" - which applies to robes of honor, meat from ritual prohibition, and all things from their sacred status. 

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metal and metzolah

When I was a kid, I realized that while I clearly knew what "metal" was, it was difficult to define. 

Metal is hard? Well, so is wood. Shiny? So is glass. Hard and shiny? Well, diamonds aren't metal. Can be bent? Well, I can't bend a penny, but I can bend plastic. Metals can have different colors (gold, silver, etc.), so that can't be it. But if you put two forks in front of me, one metal and one from another material, I could easily tell them apart.

I later learned that there are scientific definitions that identify what a metal is. Certain physical characteristics weren't evident to me at that age - like how well they conduct electricity or the high melting point. And at the most basic level, metals are certain elements in the periodic table, specifically those that lose electrons easily and can therefore form metallic bonds. 

Even reading about the meaning of metal in chemistry and physics today, I'm not sure how much I really understand. But my early exploration into the meaning of the word then has taught me a lesson that I certainly do carry with me now - the significance of semantics. While sometimes semantics is used to indicate pettiness, it's actually rather important. It's the branch of linguistics concerned with "meaning." In some ways, it's as much associated with philosophy as the study of language. We tend to think that words equal their meaning. And this can actually lead to intense debates, when one person thinks a word means one thing, and someone else thinks it means another. (Consider the debate about whether a hot dog is a sandwich.)

But not only are words generally not that precise, in many cases, they can't be. This is demonstrated by the paradox of the heap, in which it's not possible to define how many grains of sand are in a heap (does one less make it no longer a heap?)

So while many people find themselves arguing over the meaning or usage of a word, I don't find myself pulled into those debates - even though, as an amateur linguist, I'm frequently asked to adjudicate them. I certainly fall into the "descriptivist" camp, as I'm sure many readers of this site can tell. Words constantly change meaning, and so I'd much rather view the way words interact like an observer of a National Geographic nature video than someone concerned about the way things are "supposed to be."

And maybe that understanding started back when I thought about "metal," and how our understanding of that material was based much more on our perceptions than any precise definition. 

Now while that might make a nice introduction into the psychology of my linguistic approach, it's not really a Balashon post. So I was rather surprised, when I took a more recent look into the meaning of "metal", that it may have a Hebrew origin!

The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following entry:

an undecomposable elementary substance having certain recognizable qualities (opacity, conductivity, plasticity, high specific gravity, etc.), mid-13c., from Old French metal "metal; material, substance, stuff" (12c.), from Latin metallum "metal, mineral; mine, quarry," from Greek metallon "metal, ore" (senses found only in post-classical texts, via the notion of "what is got by mining"); originally "mine, quarry-pit," probably a back-formation from metalleuein "to mine, to quarry," a word of unknown origin. 

Klein (in his CEDEL) picks up the "unknown origin" and gives his explanation:

It [metallon (= mine, quarry)] is perhaps a loan word from Hebrew metzolah מצולה, "depth"... Hebrew metzolah is related to tzula צולה, "ocean deep," and to Hebrew tzalal צלל, "he sank." 

The root tzalal - "to sink, plunge; to settle" also took on the sense of "to clear, clarify." (I assume from the sediment sinking to the bottom of the liquid.) That gives us the word tzalul - "clear, lucid."

It's nice to think that I can associate the Hebrew word for clarity with the English word metal, considering its meaning was anything but clear to me when I was young...

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bareket and emerald

On the breastplate of the High Priest, were affixed twelve gemstones (Shemot 28:17-20). There is almost no mention of most of them anywhere else in the Bible, aside from the parallel passage in Shemot 39:10-13. (A portion are mentioned in Yechezkel 28:13).

Because of the infrequent occurrences in the Tanach, along with the gap between current scientific precision and biblical nomenclature, it is difficult to identify with certainty the gems that appear in these verses. That said, let's take a look at one of them, the third stone - the bareket ברקת (mentioned in Shemot 28:17).

I have found many different translations for this stone, including:

agate, beryl, carbuncle, citrine, emerald, hyacinth, malachite, peridot, pyrite, rock-crystal, smaragd, topaz

And then some take either the easy way out or the more precise method (depending on your point of view), and translate it as "bareketh."

The etymology of bareket isn't much help. It likely derives from the word barak ברק - "lightning", and so means "flashing" or "sparkling" stone.  Since gems are almost by definition shiny, all of the stones mentioned above could fit that description.

The attempts to identify the bareket with a gemstone that we know today is based on seeing its translation in ancient translations, as well as explanations offered by midrashim and later commentaries. I won't go into all of the analysis here (to see a good summary of traditional Jewish sources, see the Living Torah commentary on the verse here).

I'd like to take a look at how the word bareket ended up in European languages, and perhaps that will help us identify the stone. 

Now, this is different from some words that entered European languages because they were borrowed as part of the Bible itself entering Europe (as I recently wrote about the words myrrh, aloe and cassia on the 929 site.) Rather, the name of the stone itself migrated into other languages.

From Hebrew (or some other cognate Semitic language, like the Akkadian barraqtu), bareket entered into Greek as smaragdos, which Latin borrowed as smaragdus, eventually becoming esmaraldus in Medieval Latin, esmeraude in French, and then "emerald" in English.  

This might seem like a strange journey, particularly from bareket  to smaragdos. But as this Philologos column explains (along with many other interesting linguistic details about the words we've discussed here and more) it's reasonable when you look at how certain letters are exchanged in phonetic shifts.

Philologos actually promotes a different theory than what I've presented here. He says that the Hebrew baraket may have its origin in a Sanskrit word - marakata:

Bareket strikes one at first glance as being an original Hebrew word that derives, quite appropriately for a gemstone, from the verb barak, to shine or sparkle. In Akkadian, the Semitic language of ancient Babylonia, we have the cognate noun barraktu, also meaning an emerald, and a similar verb. Perhaps indeed it was the influence of this verb that helped change an initial “m” into a “b” (a common shift in language, “m” being in essence a nasalized “b”), because scholars have known for a long time that the Akkadian word was borrowed from the Sanskrit marakata, an “emerald” or gem of green corundum. To this day, the marakata is one of the seven sacred stones of Hinduism, associated with the planet Mercury and the day Tuesday, on which it is traditionally worn.

Marakata is not only the ultimate source of Hebrew bareket. It is also that of Greek smaragdos, with which, except for the Greek’s initial “s,” it shares the same root consonants. (“Like “m” and “b,” “k” and hard “g,” and “t” and “d,” are similar sounds that frequently replace each other in speech.) 

Most of the sources I looked at, including Klein and the Online Etymology Dictionary say the Sanskrit word was borrowed from a Semitic source. (For further discussion see this page). Whichever direction the word ultimately traveled (the Ben Yehuda dictionary mentions both theories, although sides with a Semitic origin), the b/m, k/g and t/d replacements still work here. As far as the prosthetic "s" at the beginning of smaragdos - I'm not sure. But since all explanations have Greek borrowing from a foreign language, for some reason the Greeks found a reason to add the "s".

So we do seem to have a linguistic connection drawn between bareket and "emerald." I don't think that's proof that the emerald as we define it today was on the High Priest's breastplate, but it's certainly possible that the ancient Greek smaragdos was similar to the stone mentioned in the Torah.

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kabarnit and cyber

 A phrase often used in eulogies (too frequently heard these days) is taken from this passage Bava Batra 91a-b:

And Rav Ḥanan bar Rava says that Rav says: On that day when our forefather Abraham left the world, the leaders of the nations of the world stood in a line, in the manner of mourners, and said: "Woe to the world that has lost its leader, and woe to the ship that has lost its captain."

ואמר רב חנן בר רבא אמר רב אותו היום שנפטר אברהם אבינו מן העולם עמדו כל גדולי אומות העולם בשורה ואמרו אוי לו לעולם שאבד מנהיגו ואוי לה לספינה שאבד קברינטא

The word translated here as "captain" is קברניט kabarnit. It's a post-biblical word, parallel to the biblical rav chovel  רב חובל - "chief sailor" (as found in Yonah 1:6). Kabarnit is borrowed from the Greek kybernetes (steersman), which derives from the verb kybernan (to steer, guide, govern).

From Greek, this same root entered Latin, where it eventually gave us the word "govern":

late 13c., "to rule with authority," from Old French governer "steer, be at the helm of; govern, rule, command, direct" (11c., Modern French gouverner), from Latin gubernare "to direct, rule, guide, govern" (source also of Spanish gobernar, Italian governare), originally "to steer, to pilot," a nautical borrowing from Greek kybernan "to steer or pilot a ship, direct as a pilot," figuratively "to guide, govern"

A much more recent use of the Greek root was by the Jewish American mathematician, Norbert Wiener. He used it to coin the term "cybernetics":

"theory or study of communication and control," coined 1948 by U.S. mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), with -ics + Latinized form of Greek kybernetes "steersman" (metaphorically "guide, governor"), from kybernan "to steer or pilot a ship, direct as a pilot"

In the 1990s, when use of the internet began spreading rapidly, the first half of cybernetics was taken as a prefix: "cyber." At the time, it was used it was used to describe anything internet related, and the internet as a whole was known as "cyberspace." 

The broad use has declined since then, and today it is primarily used in the term "cybersecurity". In fact, in Israel, the use of just "cyber" סייבר alone refers to the field of internet and data security.

 

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khnun and chanan

What is the origin of the Hebrew word for "nerd" - חנון khnun? 

At first glance, it might seem that chnun is related to the Hebrew word for a gifted student - מחונן mechonan. That word derives from the root chanan חנן. Chanan in turn, derives from chen חן - "grace." Chanan can mean to act graciously or mercifully, as in the verse: 

  וְחַנֹּתִי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אָחֹן וְרִחַמְתִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אֲרַחֵם׃

"...I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." (Shemot 33:19)

That meaning gives us such words as chanun חנון - "merciful, gracious" (as in the above verse); chanina חנינה - "favor" in Biblical Hebrew (Yirmiyahu 16:13) and "amnesty" in modern Hebrew; and the words techina תחינה and tachanun תחנון, both meaning "supplication for favor."

By extension, chanan can also mean "to grant" in general (in a gracious sense). This is how it used in Bereshit 33:5 -

הַיְלָדִים אֲשֶׁר־חָנַן אֱלֹהִים אֶת־עַבְדֶּךָ

"...they are the children who God kindly granted your servant"

It is also found in the fourth blessing of the weekday Amidah prayer:

אַתָּה חוֹנֵן לְאָדָם דַּעַת 

"You grant man knowledge"

From here we get the word chinam חינם - "gratuitously, for nothing, free", since something chinam was given for nothing. And it is also where the word mechonan - "gifted" comes from, since someone "gifted" was "granted" or "endowed" with a talent or knowledge.

But this is actually not the origin of khnun. Rather, it derives from a slang term, borrowed from Moroccan Arabic, sometimes spelled xnuna (or hnuna), meaning "nasal mucus" (snot). A snot-nosed kid was considered, as in English, a brat, or weak and teased for his condition, and from there it came to mean "nerd" as well. Perhaps that later meaning was influenced from an association with mechonan, but it wasn't the original derivation.

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malakh and angel

The most common English translation for the Hebrew word malach מלאך is "angel." Is that a good translation? 

Well, it depends. If you think the definition of angel is (only) a divine, celestial being, perhaps with wings and a robe, then no. But as we'll see, that's not really what a malakh or an angel originally meant.

In Biblical Hebrew, malakh simply means "messenger." It can either refer to a divine messenger (in 124 cases) or a human messenger (88 times). To indicate that the malakh is sent by God, the word is conjugated with a name of God. If we look at Bereshit 32:2-4, we see examples of both kinds of messengers:

וְיַעֲקֹב הָלַךְ לְדַרְכּוֹ וַיִּפְגְּעוּ־בוֹ מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים׃

וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב כַּאֲשֶׁר רָאָם מַחֲנֵה אֱלֹהִים זֶה וַיִּקְרָא שֵׁם־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא מַחֲנָיִם׃ 

וַיִּשְׁלַח יַעֲקֹב מַלְאָכִים לְפָנָיו אֶל־עֵשָׂו אָחִיו אַרְצָה שֵׂעִיר שְׂדֵה אֱדוֹם׃

Jacob went on his way, and angels of God [malakhei Elohim] encountered him. When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he named that place Mahanaim. Jacob sent messengers [malakhim] ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

While it is possible that Jacob sent the same angels to his brother that he encountered earlier (as Rashi writes), the plain sense of the verse is that these were human messengers (as Ibn Ezra and Radak comment.)  And there are many verses, such as Melachim I 19:2, where there is no question the malakhim are human.

Malakh derives from the root לאך, which has cognates in other Semitic languages, and means "to send." (It is not used as a verb in Hebrew, but it is used as one in Ugaritic and Arabic.) Some, like Stahl, say that לאך is related to the root הלך - "to go, to walk." The root לאך is also the origin of the word melacha מלאכה - "work, labor, craft." There are different opinions as to the connection between melacha and sending a messenger. Klein writes that melacha comes from the root meaning "to send", and therefore literally means "mission" (presumably of the person assigned to do the work.)

Others point to the phrase mishlach yad משלח יד, which literally means "sending of the hand", also means "work" (see for example Devarim 15:10,23:21). So perhaps if in that expression the laborers "send their hands" to do the work, in the parallel melacha (with the roots שלח and לאך being synonyms) maybe the hands are being sent as well.

In post-biblical Hebrew, the use of malakh began to change. It came to only mean the divine messengers, where as shaliach שליח was the term used for earthly ones. 

When the Bible was translated into Greek, a word was needed to render malakh into Greek. The word chosen was angelos, Angelos was used to refer to both human and divine messengers, as Greek didn't have a word specifically for messengers sent by God. Later the Bible was translated into Latin as well. Latin, like Greek, didn't have a word specifically for divine messengers. So those translators used the already existing Latin nuntius for human messengers (related to "nuncio" meaning envoy), and borrowed the Greek angelos for divine ones. The word angelos entered the European languages with this meaning as well. So this is how angel, in English, came to mean specifically a divine, celestial agent. 

But where does the Greek word angelos originally come from? There are a number of theories, but Klein's is particularly interesting. He says it has Semitic roots, and is cognate with familiar Hebrew words. He writes in his CEDEL:

...of Persian, ultimately of Semitic origin. Compare Akkadian agarru, 'hireling, hired laborer,' from agaru, 'to hire', which is related to Aramaic agar, eggar, 'he hired', (whence Arabic ajara, of same meaning), Hebrew iggereth, Aramaic iggera, iggarta, 'letter', properly 'message.' ... The sense development of Greek angelos [...] from a Semitic noun meaning 'hireling,' may be illustrated by the phrases 'hireling, hired messenger, messenger.'

We've actually discussed agar אגר as "to hire" before. But I didn't know then that igeret אגרת - "letter" was related to agar, and I certainly didn't know it could be related to "angel." Klein doesn't discuss the Persian bridge word between Greek and the Semitic languages, but Ben Yehuda does. He says that perhaps igeret comes from the Persian angar - meaning "story, narrative." The "n" in angar could explain the "n" in "angel" as well. From there it gets a little confusing. Perhaps the Persian was borrowed from Semitic, or maybe igeret came straight from the Semitic agar. 

In any case, igeret certainly has Persian associations, as it appears only in the books of Esther and Nechemiah (which take place in the Persian period) and in Divrei HaYamim (whose composition is also from that time.) And just like in English a messenger is one who sends a message, so too in the Semitic-Persian-Greek development of the word, it's not hard to see how igeret and angelos are connected. 

So to return to the original question - is "angel" a good translation for malakh? Well, considering both the fact that it was used specifically to translate malakh, and may even have roots in Semitic languages like Hebrew - I'd venture to say it's the perfect word for it! 

 

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lashon hara, ayin hara, and yetzer hara

 I don't discuss grammar much here, because I don't feel confident in explaining all the intricacies of the various rules of Hebrew grammar. And usually it doesn't reflect much on my focus here - the meaning and origin of Hebrew words and phrases. 

But there are times where issues of grammar affect our understanding of those phrases, and this is one of those occasions.

I'd like to take a look at how the letter heh is used as a definite article. This Wikipedia page gives a pretty good summary:

In traditional grammar, Hebrew common nouns have three “states”: indefinite (corresponding to English “a(n)/some __”), definite (corresponding to English “the __”), and construct (corresponding to English “a(n)/some/the __ of”). Therefore, the definite article was traditionally considered to be an actual part of the definite noun. In modern colloquial use, the definite article is often taken as a clitic, attaching to a noun but not actually part of it. For example, the Hebrew term for school is בֵּית־סֵפֶר‎ (beit séfer, “house-of book”); so in traditional grammar, “the school” is בֵּית־הַסֵּפֶר (beit-haséfer, “house-of-the-book”), but in modern colloquial speech, it is often הַבֵּית־סֵפֶר (habeit-séfer, “the-house-of-book”).

(More details and examples can be found here).

Speakers of a language generally absorb the rules of grammar, even if they can't explicitly explain them. So with an understanding of the rules above, Hebrew speakers usually can figure out what do with two words in one phrase.  If there are two nouns, like bayit and sefer, without the definite article, the phrase is beit sefer, and with the definite article, the phrase is beit hasefer.

If there is a noun and an adjective, however, the heh appears twice. So "a big house" is bayit gadol, but "the big house" is habayit hagadol. Again, these are intuitive rules to anyone accustomed to speaking Hebrew.

But sometimes our familiarity with these rules doesn't work to our favor, and can lead to a phenomenon called hypercorrection, where we apply rules where they don't belong, and actually use the language incorrectly.

This is the case with three familiar Hebrew phrases: lashon hara לשון הרע, ayin hara עין הרע and yetzer hara יצר הרע.

The first source of confusion is the word ra. Meaning "evil" or "bad", it can be either a noun or an adjective. But as we saw above, the only time the heh appears only before the second word in a phrase, is when they're both nouns. So I found frequent cases, where authors said that lashon hara "literally means the tongue of evil" or ayin hara "literally means the eye of evil." This is supported further by the fact that ayin and lashon are assumed to have the feminine gender, so if ra was an adjective, it would be hara'ah הרעה.

While those phrases are still generally translated as "the evil tongue" and "the evil eye" (as well as "the evil inclination" for yetzer hara) - there is a subtle difference between ra being a noun or an adjective in these phrases, especially since they are phrases loaded with religious meaning.

In these cases, ra actually is an adjective, not a noun. As this article by the Hebrew Language Academy points out, while it's not common, there are noun-adjective phrases with heh only preceding the adjective. For example, in Bereshit 1:31, we find the phrase yom hashishi יום השישי - "the sixth day", and not hayom hashishi. In post-biblical Hebrew, we find the phrase כנסת הגדולה knesset hagedola - "the great assembly", and not haknesset hagedola. 

And while ayin and lashon are generally feminine nouns, there are case where they are male, as in Eicha 4:4, Zecharia 4:14 and Tehilim 11:4. So there is no need to hypercorrect, and we can still translate the phrases as "the evil eye", "the evil tongue", and "the evil inclination."

And while we're here, let's take a quick look at the origin of each of the phrases:

Lashon hara: This term refers to malicious speech or slander. In Biblical Hebrew, the word for someone speaking this way is rechil רכיל, which provided the noun rechilut רכילות. In Rabbinic Hebrew, the phrase lashon hara  was introduced (based on a related phrase in Tehilim 34:14), and distinctions were made in Jewish law between rechilut and lashon hara. 

Ayin hara: This phrase appears in the mishna, for example Avot 2:11 עַיִן הָרָע, וְיֵצֶר הָרָע, וְשִׂנְאַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם - "the evil eye, the evil inclination, and hatred for humankind put a person out of the world." According to Safrai (on Avot), this likely refers to jealousy. It has a parallel the phrase ayin ra'ah in an earlier mishna (Avot 2:9), along with the opposite - ayin tova. In that case, the phrases are referring to a generous or stingy person (as explained in Avot 5:13, and based on related phrases in Devarim 15:9; 28:54,56). One who is stingy with his own possessions is likely to be jealous of the possessions of others. Only later, in the Amoraic period (for example Berachot 20a) did ayin hara come to be associated with an external, even magic, curse - "the evil eye."

Yetzer hara: This phrase, the "evil inclination", originates in Bereshit 6:5 and 8:21 - יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע‎, yetzer lev-ha-adam ra - "the inclination of man's heart was evil."  In parallel, rabbinic texts also mention the yetzer hatov - "the good inclination", which motivates people to do good. This is certainly a more optimistic approach than the fatalistic conclusion that we are only inclined to evil. The mishna (Berachot 4:9) rules that we must serve God with both of our inclinations - the good and the evil. 

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segula, segel and mesugal

 Way back in 2006, I mentioned briefly the etymology of segulah:

segula סגולה - "property" is related to the Akkadian word sugullu - herd of cattle

And a few months later, I pointed out that segula is not related to segol סגול - "violet, purple" (for a more in depth discussion see Elon Gilad's article here.)

But segula deserves much more attention. It's a word with a fascinating history, that has led to many different meanings. Let's take a look.

Much of what I'll be discussing here is based on an article (in Hebrew) by M.Z Kaddari, in his book The Medieval Heritage of Modern Hebrew Usage (Dvir, 1970). Here's a section of the English abstract which summarizes his extensive discussion Hebrew about segula:

An instructive instance in the dialects of emotional connotation is the word segula. In Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, this word was an emotional one ('valued property', 'peculiar treasure'); however, it seems to occur as a pure concept word also ('treasure', 'fortune'). This emotional change happens similarly in the language of the Piyyutim (Liturgical Poetry) and in Medieval Hebrew. Later on in Middle Hebrew, influenced by Arabic, the word designated 'characteristic feature' too, without any emotional overtone (the former emotional overtone had disappeared). But it had been used in special environments (designating objects endowed with the power of recovery); consequently, an emotional secondary meaning had developed in it ('magic quality'), which has survived up to our days in some vernacular usages. However, due to the last generations's alienation from misbeliefs, sometimes this renewed emotional meaning of segula has been suppressed: hence the word is used simply as a term of 'character,' 'quality'. In Modern Hebrew, we find segula in both meanings: the general and literary languages have its notional meaning ('quality'), while the substandard vernacular (influenced by the Musar and Hasidic literature, and by Yiddish) keeps carrying its emotional meaning ('magic quality').

I can't transcribe all 14 pages here of his Hebrew essay, but I'll try to summarize the main developments of the word.

1. As I mentioned in my original post, segula meant "herd of cattle" in Akkadian, and that probably was the original meaning in Hebrew as well.
2. From there, the word came to mean "property". As I pointed out in my 2006 post, the development from cattle to property can also be found in the Hebrew words rechesh רכש, kinyan קנין, and neches נכס. It is used with this meaning in Kohelet 2:8 and Divrei HaYamim I 29:3.
3. In the Torah, Israel is described as God's segula (Shemot 19:5; Devarim 7:6, 14:2, 26:18). While it clearly indicates a close relationship between God and Israel, ultimately it indicates that the nation is His property -  a suzerainty. In the biblical context, segula does not imply any inherent advantages or positive traits. (Shemot 19:5 is noteworthy in this regard, because the nation becoming God's segula is dependent on following the laws.)
4. In Rabbinic Hebrew, segula continues to mean "property." This is where we first find the verb סיגל sigel - meaning "to acquire property" and mesugal מסוגל - "belonging to."
5. Once the verb sigel became widely used, segula was understood to be its gerund, so it also took on the meaning "what one acquires for oneself" - i.e. treasure.
6. This sense of "treasure" was expanded beyond the sense of property, and came to mean something "dear" to someone. So a person could also be a segula to someone else. 
7. In the piyuttim, a number of these meanings were combined, and so Israel is described as a segula, meaning "dear treasured nation" or "dear possession." The piyyutim literally had "poetic license," and they created new words and grammatical structures. So they created the new word segel סגל, synonymous with segula. As Yaakov Etsion discusses here, one of the phrases found in a Rosh Hashana piyyut is segel chavura סֶגֶל חֲבוּרָה. The phrase literally means that Israel is an "association of segula, a treasured group" The author flipped the semichut (construct form), as Etsion describes. This phrase was used in other contexts as a fancy, poetic expression. But over time, it was assumed to have "normal" semichut, and eventually the chavura was dropped. Today, as a result, segel means "corps, cadre, senior staff" in Modern Hebrew.
8. In Medieval Hebrew, segula came to mean something of great importance, and particularly something "select, chosen." This is how it is used in the writings of Yehuda Halevi, for example. (Much of these Medieval uses are borrowed from parallel phrases in Arabic, which I won't go into here.) 
9. This led to a distinction between the masses and special people, who became known as yechidei segula יחידי סגולה.
10. Following its Arabic parallels, segula also came to mean "characteristic feature." This goes back to its early meaning of "property." The same phenomenon can be found in words in English (deriving from Latin), like "peculiar" which means "belonging exclusively to one person; special, particular", but derived from a word meaning "private property", and even further back - "cattle." The English word "property" also means both "possession, thing owned" and "nature, quality." We find this use of segula in the translations of Rambam's Arabic writings into Hebrew.
11. Over time, segula didn't just mean "characteristic" but specifically a "positive" characteristic. (Think of how in English, we tell someone to "behave", but we mean "behave well.") It specifically became attributed to the positive attributes plants and other objects had in providing healing and health. 
12. This association with medicine and the natural world, eventually expanded to the supernatural and the magical. A "segula", in this context, is a kind of charm or ritual, that would bring good fortune or protect from harm. 
13. As Kaddari mentioned above, as the Jewish world became more secularized, the belief in magical segulot faded, but the word remained. Just as a segula had magical abilities, once stripped of that belief, it just became an ability. And this was particularly found in the verbal. If a person is מסוגל mesugal, he is able or capable (of performing an action). And in the hitpael form, הסתגל, means "to adapt oneself" and histaglut הסתגלות is "adaptation, acclimation."

For me, watching a word develop that way is simply beautiful. That simple root has followed the speakers of Hebrew since antiquity, always adapting to the where the nation was at the time. Truly an am segula!

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