havlaga

Whenever Israel enters a military conflict, a common word heard is הבלגה havlaga. It means restraint, and להבליג is to restrain oneself. The word only appears a few times in Tanach: Amos 5:9, Tehillim 39:14, Eyov 9:27 and 10:20, and Yirmiyahu 8:18 (according to some opinions).

What is its etymology? (And, no, it's not from "blog" - blogs aren't exactly the source of self-restraint.)

In his entry, Klein writes:

Base of uncertain origin and meaning: usually rendered by 'to restrain oneself'. Most scholars connect it with Arab. balija ( = he gleamed, smiled), however, the verb הבליג could hardly have this meaning in the verses in which it occurs in the Bible.

However, in the verses themselves, it didn't mean "restraint" either. The Targum consistently translates הבליג as גבר, and Kaddari writes that it means to overcome someone else. The classical commentaries also explain הבליג as "becoming stronger".

It is beyond the scope of this blog to explain the Jewish concept of heroism, but we see also with the root גבר that it can mean both to "become strong" and "to overcome (oneself)".

An interesting source in Shabbat 77b is both related to this root and to today's situation. The gemara lists a number of cases where small animals can scare larger ones, and the proof of this is the pasuk from Amos 5:9 - הַמַּבְלִיג שֹׁד, עַל-עָז "Who sends forth destruction against the strong".

So after all this, our conception of havlaga and who is strong and who is weak is more confused then ever. Maybe my next entry will have more clarity...

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tzafon

I'm not the only one who noticed the pasuk in the haftara:

מִצָּפוֹן תִּפָּתַח הָרָעָה, עַל כָּל-יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ

"From the north shall disaster break loose upon all the inhabitants of the land!" (Yirmiyahu 1:14)

What is the etymology of tzafon צפון - north?

Related to J Aram. צפונא, Ugar. ( = north). Prob. derived from צפן and lit. meaning "the hidden or dark region". Several scholars derive צפון from צוף (= to swim), so that צפון would properly mean "the maritime land".

Kaddari points out that it refers to a number of enemies from the north.

The Assyrians:

כִּי מִצָּפוֹן עָשָׁן בָּא, וְאֵין בּוֹדֵד בְּמוֹעָדָיו (Yishayahu 14:31)

The Babylonians:

כִּי רָעָה, אָנֹכִי מֵבִיא מִצָּפוֹן (Yirmiyahu 4:6)

The Medes (against the Babylonians):

כִּי עָלָה עָלֶיהָ גּוֹי מִצָּפוֹן (Yirmiyahu 50:3)

The Hebrew word for "compass" מצפן matzpen - derives from tzafon as well. Klein writes that the word was coined by David Yellin (1864-1941), and literally means "that which points north". We also find the expression in Hebrew לאבד את הצפון - l'abed et hatzafon -- "to act without discretion, without reason", literally "to lose the north (direction in a compass.)

The word מצפון matzpun - conscience in Modern Hebrew - is indirectly related, as it also derives from the root צפן - to hide. Klein has two meanings, one biblical, and one modern:

1. hidden treasure (a hapax legemenon in the Bible, occurring Ovadia verse 6 in the phrase נִבְעוּ מַצְפֻּנָיו 'his hidden treasures were sought out').

2. conscience. מצפון is a loan translation of Arab. damir (= conscience), from damara (he hid, concealed, kept secret).

To end on a more positive note, north has a good connotation as well. In Bava Batra 25b, Rabbi Yitzchak says: הרוצה שיחכים ידרים, ושיעשיר יצפין "He who desires to become wise should turn to the south, and he who desires to become rich should turn to the north"...

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haslama

One of the most popular words used by the Israeli media today is הסלמה haslama. As of this writing, it appears more than 300 times in the Hebrew Google News. It means "escalation" - although an escalator is not a מסלים maslim, but is either דרגנוע dragnoa or מדרגות נעות madregot naot (Alcalay offers masak מסק, but I haven't seen that anywhere else.)

The word derives from sulam סולם - Hebrew for ladder. I was surprised to find out that sulam was a hapax legomenon - it appears only once in the Tanach, in Bereshit 28:12 - in Yaakov's famous dream. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is more than one opinion as to the meaning and etymology of the word. Nahum Sarna writes in his commentary:

The Hebrew term sullam, here rendered "stairway", is unique in the Bible; its etymology is uncertain. It may derive from the stem s-l-l, "to cast up a mound," or may be connected with Akkadian simmiltu, "steps." Sullam could therefore be a ladder or a stairway ramp.

There is an extensive article here describing the word sulam, its meaning and etymology.

We find that the ancient name of Rosh HaNikra, on the Lebanese border was סולמא דצור - "The Ladder of Tyre" - for it led up to the mountains of Lebanon.

Klein accepts the opinion that sulam derives from סלל, which he translates as "to lift up, to cast up", and connects to the Akkadian sullu - highway. One of the derivatives of סלל is the interjection סלה - "Selah". It appears often in Tehillim and in the book of Habbakuk as well. Klein says it is "probably a musical direction to raise the voice and derived from סלל (= to raise, to lift)." (See also Daat Mikra on Tehillim 68:5).

Another derivative is סוללה solela, which originally meant a raised mound of earth, primarily placed around the walls of a city for defensive purposes. According to Almagor-Ramon, Rashi (where?) explains the word as a catapult used to launch large stones. In the 17th century, the word solela was used in the sense of artillery. From here the word took on the meaning of an electrical battery - and indeed, the English word battery followed a similar path, first meaning a "unit of artillery" and then later meaning "an electrical cell."

So we've read about escalation, the entrance to Lebanon, and batteries of artillery. It's hard to tell whether we're discussing etymology or the news...

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koret

Previously we discussed the etymology of the English word carob and how it derives from the Hebrew חרוב haruv. The Greeks also had a word for carob - keration, literally meaning "little horn", from keras, horn. This eventually led to the English word carat as described here:

A carat is a weight. A small weight. Very small... there are 150 to the ounce. Well, at least, there are these days. In days of yore there might have been 144 or even 24 carats to the ounce. Obviously, in those days it paid to keep abreast of the local conversion rates. Carat comes from the Greek keration "little horn" and refers to the fruit of the carob (Ceratonia siliqua) tree. Let us, who have seen their withered brown pods littering the sidewalks of Santa Clara, assure you of the accuracy of that description. Originally the seeds themselves were used as weights and their use was adopted by the Arabs who traded all over the Mediterranean. They pronounced keration as qirrat and it was this Arabic word which entered Italian as carato and French as carat.

Kutscher points out that the Jews also used carob seeds as a measurement of weight as well as a monetary value. He quotes Lazar ben Yose from the time of the early Arab conquest of Eretz Yisrael as writing that he paid with "27 haruvin." Ibn Ezra on Shmot 30:13, explains that weight gera גרה is referring to carob seeds (גרגרי חרוב).

Kutscher writes that from Greek, keration passed into Aramaic, and appears in Yerushalmi Peah 21a: חד קרט. He claims that the term entered Arabic via Aramaic.

Kutscher writes that there are those that say that keration has a Semitic origin, but he believes it is originally Greek. I assume he might be referring to the similarity between the Greek keras and the Hebrew קרן keren - both meaning horn. In any case, Klein does not buy into the widely accepted approach, and writes:

But the Greek word itself is a Semitic loan word; it is borrowed either from Aram.-Syr. קרטא (= pod, husk), or Arab. qaraz (pods of the acacia tree). Gk. keration in the above sense is a folk-etymological alteration of the Sem. word and has nothing in common with keration (= small horn), dimin. of keras.

Related words in Hebrew are koret קורט - meaning "a particle, a grain", and Almagor-Ramon connects kurtov קורטוב, a small liquid measure in Talmudic Hebrew, and today meaning "a pinch" (Klein does not make a connection between the two, and Jastrow says that koret comes from קרץ, pinch.)

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carob

Kutscher (pg 28-9) brings up some interesting points about the carob tree - חרוב (haruv/charuv/kharuv). He writes that it appears nowhere in the Bible; this is particularly striking considering there are those that claim that the haruv originated in Eretz Yisrael. He quotes Immanuel Loew as saying that this word is proof that there are words that were used in Biblical times but don't appear in the Tanach, but show up in Tannaic times.

He writes that the etymology of the word is from the sword shaped pod - herev חרב is sword in Hebrew. (Jastrow claims it comes from חרב meaning dry - perhaps due to the dryness of the fruit, or the climate it can grow in). The word passed from Hebrew to Aramaic חרובא, and from Aramaic to Arabic harrubah. In the Middle Ages, it passed from Arabic to the European languages - caroube in French, carruba in Italian and carob in English.

More about other etymologies related to the carob plant (but not the word haruv) tomorrow.

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nivreshet

A couple of years ago, I was in a beit knesset in Israel and they had a list of objects that one could donate money for. I recognized all of them but one - the נברשת nivreshet. The closest Hebrew word I knew was mivreshet מברשת - meaning "brush", and I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to donate thousands of dollars towards a brush for a shul.

Turns out that nivreshet means chandelier or candelabrum in Modern Hebrew. The term first appears in Daniel 5:5, where it is generally translated as a menora מנורה - lamp. The fancier meaning of chandelier probably comes from a description of the nivreshet in the Second Temple in the third chapter of Yoma, as described here:

"Heleni HaMalka, Queen Helena, set a golden Nivreshet over the door of the Heichal…" (Yoma 3:10). I wrote that the Nivreshet was actually a rather unusual timepiece. "When the (rising) sun shined on it, it sparkled (from the reflected light) and then everybody knew that the time had arrived for K'ri'at Shema. (Yoma 37b).

What is the etymology of the word? Klein writes only that it is "of uncertain, prob. foreign origin" and that the similar Arabic nibras "is an Aramaic loan word".

Rav Saadia Gaon in his commentary on Daniel writes that the lamp was lit yearly, and therefore derives from the Aramaic ner bar shta נר בר שתא - "yearly lamp".

Steinberg provides a different combination: nevar-eshta נבר-אשתא - "a light of fire".

However, my favorite explanation comes from Stahl, following Jastrow. He writes that the Aramaic form of the word - נברשתא - was originally נבלשתא nevlashta. Therefore the root of the word is בלש - to search (guessing why I like this theory?). Stahl points out that on the verse in Tzephania (1:12) - וְהָיָה בָּעֵת הַהִיא, אֲחַפֵּשׂ אֶת-יְרוּשָׁלִַם בַּנֵּרוֹת "At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps", is translated by the Targum as: כמא דבלשין בנברשתא. He therefore thinks that נברשת and נבלשת are connected, and perhaps the word developed because one uses a lamp to search for things in the darkness.

And what of the mivreshet I spoke earlier? It turns out it wasn't a coincidence it was so familiar to me. Klein writes that it was:

Coined (in the form מברשה) by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) from corresponding words in non-Sem. languages (Ger. Burste, Fren. brosse, Eng. brush, etc.)

So I guess sometimes you have to "search with candles" to find an etymology, and sometimes it's right in front of your nose...

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tamid

In this week's parasha (Pinchas) we have the description of the daily offering - the תמיד tamid (Bamidbar 28:2). This week, on the 17th of Tammuz, we commemorate the discontinuation of the tamid offering. What does the word tamid mean?

In modern Hebrew tamid is generally translated as "always". And in fact, most of the translations translate the term as a "continuous offering." However, Jacob Milgrom in the JPS Numbers translates it as "regular burnt offering" and writes "Tamid means 'regular,' not 'perpetual, eternal'." In a footnote he continues:

Just as aruhat tamid (2 Kings 25:29-30) refers to food regularly served on the king's table, 'anshei tamid (Ezek 39:14) means "men in regular employment" (N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers) and ner tamid (Exod. 27:20) refers to the regular lighting of the menorah each evening.

However, Milgrom's colleague in the JPS series, Nahum Sarna, is a little more flexible in his commentary on ner tamid in the JPS Exodus. He translates להעלות נר תמיד as "for kindling lamps regularly", and in his commentary writes:

Hebrew tamid may mean "with unfailing regularity" or "uninterruptedly." Thus, the olat tamid refers to the burnt offering brought twice daily, while esh tamid is the fire that burns perpetually on the altar and is never extinguished. Regarding the present case, verse 21 and Leviticus 24:3 explicitly state that the lamps are to burn from evening until morning. Further I Samuel 3:3 mentions that "the lamp of God had not yet gone out" in the sanctuary at Shiloh. Accordingly, as Rashi and Ibn Ezra recognize, ner tamid means a lamp kindled on a regular basis each evening. However, Josephus, referring to the Second Temple, records that on the lampstand "there is a light which is never extinguished by day or night". Ramban is of the opinion that the ner tamid is indeed a perpetually lit lamp from which light was taken at dusk each day to kindle the menorah.

Cassuto also agrees with Rashi. On Shmot 27:20 he writes:

The word tamidh is intrinsically capable of two interpretations: it can mean 'continuously, without interruption' - that is, the lamps would never be extinguished, either by day or by night; or it can signify 'regularly' - that is the lamps would burn every night; on no night would its light be wanting - as in the expression עלת תמיד olath tamidh ['continual burnt offering']. According to the plain meaning of the text, the second sense is more probable, for in v. 21 it is stated: 'from evening to morning'; so, too, in Leviticus 24:3; compare, further, Exodus 30:7-8, and also I Samuel 3:3 'And the lamp of the Lord had not yet gone out.' During the day there was no need for the light of the candelabrum, since sufficient light from without entered through the screen; moreover, the priests could lift up the screen and illumine the interior
of the holy place.

Just as there is disagreement as to the meaning of tamid, there are a number of opinions as to its etymology. Klein lists several:

Probably derived from base מוד, which is related to Arab. madda (= he stretched, extended; he prolonged, made to continue), lit.: "he measured" (= Heb. מדד 'he measured'). According to Hommel, תמיד is related to Arab. ta'mid (=fixing, establishment), inf. of 'ammada (= he fixed, established). Geiger and Perles see in תמיד a contraction of תעמיד, from עמד (=to stand.) Driver derives it from base מוד appearing in Arab. mada (=he increased).

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hey

When I was a young kid, maybe third grade, someone gave me The Aleph-Bet Story Book, by Deborah Pessin (JPS, 1946). It is a children's book with 22 chapters - each about one of the letters of the alphabet. All the letters take anthropomorphic forms and get their own story. Many of the letters are associated with the etymologies of their names: Gimel becomes friends with Gamal the camel, Dalet helps Adam invent the door, etc. Pessin has Hey invent the first window - for Hey "looked like a window". That always seemed strange to me - since hey does not look that much like a window to me.

Fast-forward to earlier this year. My father brought me Letter Perfect by David Sacks. Another book about letters in the alphabet; just as enjoyable, but without the cute stories. In his chapter about the letter E, Sacks describes how it developed from the Hebrew hey. He writes:

"What the he meant - and this is no kidding - was "Hey!" The letter's name indicated a shout of surprise. And the letter's shape illustrated it strikingly. The earliest surviving example of a written he appears oldest known alphabetic writing, carved into limestone in Central Egypt around 1800 BCE. The letter shape is a human stick figure, half crouching, perhaps leaping upward, arms raised at the elbows. The person is probably meant to be shouting, in an ancient Semitic expression that by coincidence resembles our "Hey!". "


You can see the development from the "hands-up" guy here to our current hey on the e-hebrew site.

There are those that say that hey actually refers to the Hebrew word הלל - hillul or hallel, meaning jubilation. I'm not so sure. While hey does start the word hallel, it isn't actually the make up of the word. In any case, I'm not sure we need to look so far. In Hebrew and Aramaic the words הא and הי (hey and ha) mean "behold". Klein says that הי, meaning "lo", "behold" or "here is" works as a prefix in the words הילך, היכן and הינו.

Interestingly, to return to Pessin, there are those that say that while the character originally meant hillul, it followed a similar transformation as we've seen in other letters, and later took on the meaning - and pronunciation - of "window". I don't think that this is referring to chalon חלון, since there isn't much of a similarity. Perhaps there was a Phoenician word hey meaning window. Anybody know?

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scallion

Ashkelon has been in the news recently, so I thought I'd write a post in honor of the town in their difficult time.

Ashkelon was one of the five Philistine cities, and sits on the Mediterranean coast. Being on the coast, a lot of produce traveled through it. Of the vegetables that Ashkelon was widely known for included types of onions. It is debated whether the onions originated in Ashkelon, or were exported/imported via the city. In either case, from the name Ashkelon came two English words for those onions:

scallion: c.1300, from Anglo-Fr. escalone, O.N.Fr. escalogne, or O.Fr. eschaloigne, all from V.L. *escalonia, from L. (caepa) Ascalonia "(onion) from Ascalon".

shallot: 1664, from Fr. échalote, from M.Fr. eschalotte, from O.Fr. eschaloigne, from V.L. *escalonia

As this site writes:

The shallot (Allium cepa, var. aggregatum) is also listed in older works as Allium ascalonium after the town of Ascalon, Syria where it is said to originate. Theophrastus (372 - 288 BCE) describes the "Askolonion krommoon" which may or may not be a reference to the shallot. Pliny (23 - 79 CE) describes "the Ascalon onion, named for a town in Judaea" in the Natural History, Book XIX but this seems to be in reference to a different Allium, because it is propagated from seed rather than divisions.

Ashkelon was also described by the Greek historian Strabo:

The country of the Ascalonitae is a good onion-market, though the town is small.

In Hebrew these types of onions are known today as betzal yarok בצל ירוק - "green onion", as they are also known in parts of America. This site writes that:

Immanuel Loew, the German-Jewish scholar who pioneered the study of plants mentioned in ancient Jewish sources, designated the בצלצול betzaltzul as A. ascalonicum.

I find this interesting, mostly since we use betzaltzul as a nickname for our son Betzalel...

As far as the etymology of Ashkelon אשקלון, there are those that feel it comes from שקל shekel, but I haven't seen an explanation other than the appearance of that root in the name.

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boidem

The Hebrew word for "attic" is boidem (or boydem) - בוידם. Actually, it's more of a crawl-space, as described here: "created by a lowered ceiling usually running along the corridor, with an opening in the bathroom, above the door".

The word entered Hebrew via Yiddish, but originated in German as dachboden. Dachboden literally means "floor (boden) of the roof (dach)".

Dach comes from a root meaning "to cover" and is related to the English words thatch and stegosaurus.

The word boden derives from an earlier sense meaning "ground, earth, soil" and is connected to the words bottom and embed.

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kesem

Earlier, we listed a number of roots beginning with either קצ or קט - all of whom mean "to cut". I have since discovered another root: קסם, where the samech replaced the tzadi in the previous pattern.

Klein writes that קסם originally meant "to cut, break, divide, distribute" as in Arabic qasama ( = he divided, distributed, apportioned). Jastrow says that a kasam קסם means "a carver", and gives an interesting interpretation to the Mishna and Gemara in Sanhedrin 81b:

והמקלל בקוסם: תני רב יוסף יכה קוסם את קוסמו

This is generally translated as "He who curses by enchantment: He curses thus: 'May the charm [the idol] slay its enchanter' ". However, Jastrow translates it as "He that curses (his neighbor) invoking God as 'a carver' (instead of creator ex nihilo): may the carver strike his carving."

From this meaning, we get the word kesam קיסם, originally meaning "chip, carving" and now meaning "toothpick" as well.

Klein continues his etymology as follows:

'he divided by drawing lots at the sanctuary', istaqsama ( =he got a part allotted to himself), aqsama (= he swore), qismah (=portion, lot, fate), whence Turkish qismet

This is also the source of the English word kismet.

From the meaning of קסם as divination, enchantment, magic, we get the Hebrew adjective maksim מקסים - which means enchanting, and has nothing to do with "maxim" or "maximum".

One little story related to the two meanings of קסם: When I first went to the well known Jerusalem restaurant Marvad HaKesamim I wasn't aware of the significance of the name. (It means "magic carpet", and was also the name of the operation that brought Yemenite Jews to Israel at the founding of the state.) At the end of the meal, they served us toothpicks, which only then I learned were called "keisamim". I couldn't understand why they'd name a restaurant after toothpicks, even of the highest quality...

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moten and matun

A friend of mine recently asked me if there was any connection between the following words:

1. מותן moten - hip, loin, waist
2. מתון matun - moderate
3. המתין himtin- he waited
4. מתנה matana- gift

First of all, we can safely say that #4 is not related to the first 3. The original form of the word of the word was מנתנה, but the nun dropped out (as we've seen here for example). The root of the word is therefore נתן - not connected to the other three.
As far as #2 and #3, everyone agrees they are related. Klein says the root מתן means "to slow down, act slowly". Matun means he was moderate, patient and himtin means he waited (a sign of patience.) From what I can see there is no difference between להמתין and לחכות - both mean wait, but לחכות is used in the Tanach, and להמתין appears first in Lashon Chazal. In fact, when the verb חכה appears in Iyov 32:4, the Targum translates, and Rashi explains it as being המתין.
So what about moten? Any relation to matun? Klein does not suggest a connection, but Steinberg does. Steinberg says that the root מתן means "was long, was stretched" (Jastrow does as well.) He says this is the source of motnayim מתניים (the word always appears in the plural in the Tanach.) He doesn't exactly explain the connection between "to stretch" and "waist, hips", but I bet many of us could look at our belts and begin to associate...
Steinberg goes further and connects this root with a number of other words beginning with the same two letters. The verb מתח is fairly easy to connect - it means "to spread out, to stretch".
He also connects them to the word matai מתי - which besides meaning "when?" also means "a length of time" (see Yirmiyahu 13:27). He gives a number of additional examples (Habbakuk 2:6, Tehillim 80:5) and says that it is an error to always explain there matai as being part of a question.
Another related word, according to Steinberg is mavet or mot מות - death. He explains the idea of a dead person "lying down, stretched out".
Lastly, he connects the word metim מתים - meaning people, as in ויהי מתיו מספר - (Devarim 33:6) - "and let not his men be few". However, he doesn't explain the connection, so I can't write it here...

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simta

Last week we discussed how the word "zenith" derives from the Latin semita. According to Klein, semita is also the origin of the Hebrew simta סימטא (also סימטה, סמטה) - alley or lane. He writes:

From L. semita, which of compounded of se and meare (=to go, pass).

Jastrow has a different opinion. In the introduction to his dictionary, he writes:

Take e. g. the word סיטמא and its dialectic equivalent איסמטא, which means (a) a recess, an alley adjoining the market place to which the merchants retire for the transaction of business, also the trader's stand under the colonnade, and (b) an abscess, a carbuncle. The Latin semita, which since Musafia has been adopted as the origin of simta, offers hardly more than an assonance of consonants: a footpath cannot, except by a great stretch, be forced into the meaning of a market stand; and what becomes of simta as abscess? But take the word as Semitic, and סמט , dialectically שמט, offers itself readily, and as for the process of thought by which 'recess', 'nook', goes over into 'abscess' in medical language, we have a parallel in the Latin 'abscessus.'

In a footnote he adds:

In fact where Pesahim 50b has תגרי סימטא , Tosefta Biccurim end, in Mss. Erfurt and Vienna,reads תגרי שמיטה, which is obviously a corruption of שימטה, the pure Hebrew form for the Aramaic סיטמא.

A few notes of explanation:

a) Musafia refers to Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia (1606-1675), author of Musaf HaArukh, a commentary on the Talmudic dictionary, the Arukh. According to the bibliography of The Living Torah:

The author made use of the Lexicon Chaldaicum Talmudicum by Johannes Buxtorf (Basle, 1604) to show how many Talmudic words are derived from Greek and Latin.

As in this example, throughout his dictionary Jastrow tries to show how Talmudic words derive from Semitic sources. Therefore he had much cause to disagree with Mussafia.

b) For Jastrow's examples of simta meaning "abscess, carbuncle", he quotes Avoda Zara 28a, and Shabbat 67a. However, Klein, who translates it as a furuncle (another kind of boil), gives a different etymology:

From Aramaic סימטא, which is of uncertain, perhaps Greek, origin. cp. Gk. semation dimin. of sema (= mark) and semasia ( = mark in the skin).

c) Later in the dictionary, Jastrow defines שמט as "to slip, to loosen, detach, to carry off, steal".

Klein was familiar with Jastrow; in fact he includes him in his bibliography. Perhaps he rejected Jastrow's approach because more research had been done in the decades between the publication of each dictionary. But it also seems that Klein was cautious of any "agenda" when it came to etymology - either that of Mussafia or that of Jastrow. This is an important lesson to any of us today when studying the etymology of Hebrew words - be careful of those with "agendas" - and there are many of them out there.

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saraf

In this weeks parasha (Chukat) we see that as a punishment God sends: הַנְּחָשִׁים הַשְּׂרָפִים - the serafim snakes (Bamidbar 21:6). What is being referred to here?

According to Ibn Ezra and others, serafim is an adjective for the nahashim (snakes). As Rashi explains, they burn שורף - soref - with their venom. However, we eventually see the saraf taking its place as a noun. First, in the same story where it is placed on a banner. Yeshayahu (14:29, 30:6) refers to a שרף מועפף - a flying saraf (even the classic commentaries say that the snake would jump as if it was flying.) And apparently from the imagery of a flying snake, we get the famous description of the Seraphim angels (Yeshayahu 6:2,6) with their six wings.

The root שרף has a number of related roots, all following the same pattern: a sibilant consonant, followed by resh, followed by a labial consonant. And so we have:

• צרב - to burn, to scorch. From here we get the word צרבת - heartburn, and the verb לצרוב is used to describe "burning" CDs and DVDs.
• שרב - to glow, be parched, as in sharav - burning heat (I discussed the similar hamsin here).
• צרם - Steinberg adds this root, which is understood as originally "to cut", "to grate (on the ears).
• צרף - to smelt, to refine, and later to attach, to join and to change money. Klein says that the word literally means "to purify by burning." From here we get the word tzrif צריף - meaning according to Klein "a cone shaped hut, literally 'that which is joined together'." Today it is used to describe a bunk - in camp, or in the army.

Steinberg writes that the city Tzarfat צרפת - originally referring to a Phoenician town, but later associated with France - got its name from the glass manufacturing which developed in the region.
Also from צרף we get the English word "silver":

Middle English, from Old English siolfor, seolfor, probably ultimately from Akkadian sarpu, refined silver, verbal adj. of sarapu, to smelt, refine.

Klein points out that the root רצף - "to make continuous" is a metathesis of צרף, the source of ritzpa רצפה - floor. A similar word is the noun רצף retzef - meaning "burning coal". Stahl connects retzef with reshef רשף - "flame"; perhaps this is another metathesis of the previous pattern of "burning" verbs.
Another meaning of שרף is "to absorb, sip, suck, quaff". While Klein does not connect the two meanings, Jastrow associates "sip and absorb" with "consume and burn". Interestingly, Jastrow translates the midrash on נחשים שרפים (Bamidbar Rabba 19:22) which states: השרפים ששורפים את הנפש: "they are called burning serpents, because they burn the life out (with thirst)."
As far as this second meaning, Klein writes that "several scholars connect this base with Arab. sharib (= he drank), sharab (= drink, beverage)." From this root we get a number of English words:

• sherbet, sorbet - 1603, zerbet, "drink made from diluted fruit juice and sugar," from Turk. serbet, from Pers. sharbat, from Arabic sharba(t) "a drink," from shariba "he drank."
• syrup - 1392, from O.Fr. sirop (13c.), and perhaps from It. siroppo, both from Arabic sharab "beverage, wine," lit. "something drunk," from verb shariba "he drank"
• shrub - A beverage made from fruit juice, sugar, and a liquor such as rum or brandy. From Arabic surb, a drink, from sariba, to drink

Lastly, is there a connection between saraf and the English "serpent"? In the entry for שרף meaning "drink", Klein writes "cp. also 'serpent' in my CEDEL and words referred to in that entry."
However, in the CEDEL he lists serpent as coming from Latin serpens, which it says is probably the present participle of serpo, serpere, "to creep." No other serious source I could find connects the two words. I wrote to etymology maven Mike Gerver, and asked what he thought. This is his reply:

This is my guess. His remark about seeing the entry for "serpent" in CEDEL doesn't really make sense under שרף-ii, "to absorb," which is where it is printed. It would make more sense two entries down, under שרף-i (with kametz under the ש and the ר), "serpent." Probably his index cards got out of order (I've seen other places where this seems to have happened), and what he meant by that remark is that שרף meaning "serpent" might have been a loan from Latin or another Indo-European language, rather than deriving from שרף meaning "fiery angel." Or possibly he's saying that the "fiery angel" meaning might have derived from the "serpent" meaning (which itself was borrowed from Latin), rather than from שרף meaning "to burn." Or more likely, maybe he's just suggesting that שרף meaning "serpent" was influenced by Latin, even though the word is really the same as the word meaning "fiery angel." That's the only one of these possibilities that strikes me as reasonably likely.

Anyone else out there have any ideas?

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nadir

Yesterday we discussed how the letter dalet alternates with zayin in the words נזר and נדר - both meaning types of vows. Steinberg connects those two verbs with two additional ones meaning "to guard" - נטר and נצר. He says they all have a sense of "placing a boundary".

There is an English word that comes from the same family of verbs, or at least the last two. Nadir means "the lowest point", coming from astronomy, where it means: "point on the celestial sphere directly below the observer, diametrically opposite the zenith."

Klein gives the following etymology:

Fren. nadir, from Arab. nazir in the term nazir assamt (lit.: 'the point opposite to the zenith'), from nazara (=he looked at; he considered, examined), which is related to Hebrew נצר ( = he watched over, guarded.)

The homonym nadir meaning "rare", has a different origin:

From Arab. nadr ( =rare), from nadara (= was rare) from nadara in the sense 'fell away, fell', which is related to Aram.-Syr. נדר ( = it sloped, was declivitous). See מדרון.

By the way, zenith also comes via Arabic, but originally derives from Latin. Klein writes:

Fren. zenith, from Sp. cenith, from VArab semt, corresponding to classical Arab samt (=way, path), abbr. of samt ar-ra's (= way over the head), from Latin semita (=path).

This may be the origin of sentry or sentinel - the semita was the sentry's beat. Somehow we got back to guarding again...

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dalet

The fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is dalet (or daleth). There is some disagreement over the original meaning and shape of the letter. As we can see from here, the shape either represented a door or a fish. The connection to door seems clear - the Hebrew word for door is דלת - delet. But to some the original shape did not seem door-like, and looked more like a fish. Therefore some claim that the original name of the letter was dag דג (or digg in Phoenician) - meaning "fish".

Why did the letter change its name? David Sacks writes in Letter Perfect that this was possibly part of the switching of a number of letter names. He claims that around 1600 BCE, the letter became dalet when the "N" letter switched from nahash (snake) to nun (fish). This was to avoid the confusion of having two letters both with "fish" names. (The "N" letter became "nun", according to Sacks, to bring it in line with the letter mem, meaning water. This would be easier for children learning the alphabet - "water" followed by "fish."

Philologos discusses this issue further here, and has another column here where he explains why the letter was pronounced dalet or daled in Ashkenazic Hebrew/Yiddish, and not "dales" (more on that also here.)

What of the origin of the word delet? Kutscher writes that delet is one of the few words in Hebrew with a two consonant root - the tav is not radical (שורשי in Hebrew, derived from the Latin word radix, which means "root"). His proof of this is the the word for doors in Akkadian is dalati - and ati is a suffix for plurals. We also see in Hebrew that dal דל can mean door - עַל-דַּל שְׂפָתָי (Tehillim 141:3).

Klein, Stahl and Steinberg all connect delet to דל, and particularly to the two verbal roots: דלה and דלל. How are they all related?

At first דלה and דלל would seem to be opposites. The root דלל means "to be low" and also means "to become poor (דל), to decrease, to dwindle, to dilute (unrelated etymology), to thin out".

On the other hand דלה means "to raise up" - as in אֲרוֹמִמְךָ השם, כִּי דִלִּיתָנִי - "I extol (lit. lift up) you, O God, for you have raised me up" (Tehillim 30:2).

The seeming contradiction can be resolved by looking at the original context of the imagery. The verb דלה originally meant to draw up water from a well - the Hebrew word for bucket is dli דלי. In other words - what goes down must come up (or as I once heard someone say: "I'm afraid of low heights, not high heights. If I ever fall off something high, as I approach the bottom, I'll wish I was back up high again."

On this basis, both Steinberg and Jastrow say that the meaning of דל is "to be suspended, swing". This is its meaning in Aramaic: בגדך מדלי - "do you depend (suspend yourself) on good luck?" (Yerushalmi Shabbat 15d). Stahl says that דלה is related to תלה - also meaning "to hang, to suspend."

This is the connection to delet meaning "door". As Jeff A. Benner writes here:

The basic meaning of the letter is “door” but has several other meanings associated with it. It can mean “a back and forth movement” as one goes back and forth through the tent through the door. It can mean “dangle” as the tent door dangled down from a roof pole of the tent. It can also mean weak or poor as one who dangles the head down.

This can help us understand another meaning of the root. According to Klein, dala דלה - can mean "thrum" - warp threads hanging in the loom (See Yeshaya 38:12).

Kutscher writes that delet can also mean a page, as in Yirmiyahu 36:23. According to a theory here, delet originally meant a "doorboard" and then developed the meanings of a "board, plaque, plate, or tablet." This sense of the word entered into Greek as deltos, and is still preserved in the word deltiology - the study of postcards, where deltos means "writing tablet, letter." (The word delta, coming from Greek and meaning "a triangular alluvial deposit at the mouth of a river" doesn't derive from a Semitic meaning of the word, but from the triangular shape of the letter.)

The letter dalet alternates with zayin - (נדר and נזר) as well as tet and tav (בדל בטל בתל).

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bul

The Hebrew word בול bul has four meanings:

a) a stamp
b) a lump, a block
c) produce (noun)
d) absolutely correct

Almagor-Ramon in Rega Shel Ivrit writes that there's no relation between them. Klein lists them all as separate terms. But is there any connection?

Where does the term for "stamp" come from? According to Almagor-Ramon, it comes from the same word in Arabic, who borrowed it from Turkish. The Turks borrowed it from Italian, where bolla means "seal". The Italian in turn comes from the Latin bulla, which is still used as the term for a papal edict - originally a "sealed document". This meaning gave rise to the English words bulletin and bill. The original meaning in Latin meant "round thing, knob, bubble" - which referred to the seal itself. From this earlier meaning we get in English bullet, bowling and boil.

The Latin term derived from the Greek bolos (or bulos) - a lump of earth, a rounded mass. This meaning of bul is found in Mishnaic Hebrew (Shabbat 67b) and perhaps even in the Tanach - Yeshayahu 44:19 (although there are those that say it comes from the meaning of "produce".)

While there are those that claim that the Mishnaic bul was borrowed from the Greek, the origin of the Greek word is less certain.

From the discussion here, we see that the American Heritage Dictionary states that the etymology of the Greek bolos is "of obscure origin". (The same discussion explains why the Greek verb for throwing - ballein- is unrelated to bolos.) Klein and Almagor-Ramon both say that the Akkadian bulu - a "block of dry wood" is related. So perhaps this is the source of the Greek bolos?

The meaning of "produce" derives from the Hebrew word yevul יבול meaning "produce, yield, fruit". This is the source of the Biblical name of the month of Cheshvan - ירח בול - yareach bul.

And what of bul meaning "absolutely right" or "straight on"? This one's from English - "bull's eye". How did this expression come about in English? The Word Detective gives the following explanation:

A "bull's-eye" is, of course, the center spot of a target, producing the highest score a shooter (whether in firearms, archery or another competition) can score. "Bull's-eye" is also used to mean a direct hit on such a spot, or, figuratively, the accomplishment of a goal with precision and finality ("Bob scored a bull's-eye on our quarterly sales quotas."). "Bull's-eye" first appeared in this "center of the target" sense around 1833.

The question is, however, why a "bull's-eye"? For the answer, we have to go a bit further back in time. Since the 17th century, "bull's-eye" has been used as a term for almost anything small and circular, especially if it protrudes slightly, forming a hemispherical bump resembling the protruding eye of a bull or cow. Thus, at various times, "bull's-eye" has been used to designate a thick piece of glass set into the deck of a ship to illuminate the lower decks, a one-crown coin of British currency, a globular piece of candy, and a small circular window, among other things. So although the spot in the center of a target doesn't protrude like a real "bull's eye," it is small and circular and thus fit the popular definition of "bull's-eye."

So how did this explanation of bul do? Was I קולע בול - right on target? Or did I come off as a בול עץ - a blockhead?

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bible

We know the Bible was composed of Hebrew words. But is the word Bible itself of Hebrew (or related) origin?

In his Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, Klein writes:

The Bible [L. biblia, from Gk. biblia (= collection of writings), pl. of biblion (= paper, scroll, book), which is the dimin. of biblos, byblos ( = the inner bark of papyrus; book), from Byblos, Gr. name of the famous Phoen. transit port, whence the Greeks received the Egyptian papyrus. Gk. Byblos has been assimilated from גבל, the Heb.-Phoen. name of the city (=lit.: 'frontier-town') cp. Heb. גבול (= frontier, boundary), Arab. jabal (=mountain). cp. jubayl, the actual Arab. name of ancient Gebhal (jubayl properly is a dimin. formed from the original name of the city).

And the Online Etymology Dictionary (which often borrows from Klein's Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language), writes in the entry for Bible:

early 14c., from Anglo-L. biblia, from M.L./L.L. biblia (neuter plural interpreted as fem. sing.), in phrase biblia sacra "holy books," from Gk. ta biblia to hagia "the holy books," from biblion "paper, scroll," the ordinary word for "book," originally a dim. of byblos "Egyptian papyrus," possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port from which Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The port's name is a Gk. corruption of Phoenician Gebhal, lit. "frontier town" (cf. Heb. gebhul "frontier, boundary," Ar. jabal "mountain").

So I'm a little confused. There doesn't seem to be much disagreement that "bible" comes from Byblos. But did Byblos come from papyrus, or was it a corruption/assimilation of Gevul? As this site writes:

Byblos was the port for papyrus export to the Aegean countries, and their name for papyrus was byblos. Yet, it is not certain whether 'byblos' is derived from the town or if the town was named after the product exported.

Klein writes that papyrus (the source of the English "paper") is "of unknown etymology; said to be of Egyptian origin". Stahl provides two theories as to the source of papyrus - either from the Caananite/Hebrew pif-yeor פיפ-יאור - meaning "fringe of the Yeor (the Nile)", or the more likely Egyptian pa-p-yeor "this is of the Yeor" (or pa means "a plant".) Interestingly, the Hebrew word for paper, niyar נייר, according to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, has a similar etymology: it is an abbreviation of ni-yeor ני-יאור - a sheet from the Yeor.

So while Byblos may come from papyrus (which might have a Semitic origin), let's look at the other possibility - the town of Gevul. This is a very ancient port town, between Beirut and Tripoli. It is mentioned in Yechezkel 27:9, and its inhabitants may be referred to in Malachim I 5:32.

The Hebrew word gvul גבול can mean either territory or boundary, and has cognates in Phoenician, Punic and Arabic. It originally meant "mound" - often used to mark borders, and this is related to the Arabic jubal or jabal, meaning mountain. Horowitz points out that the two letters גב provide many words that mean prominent, high, upper. Here are a number of them:

• גבוה - high
• גבעה - hill
• גבור - strong man
• גבב - heap up, pile up, the source of גב - back
• גבן - hunchback - the back rises high
• גבוש - pile of stones, גיבוש - crystallization
• גבח - high, tall, as well as גבחת - high forehead, baldness in front
• גבל - knead, give the shape of a mound

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chitui

This week's parasha (Chukat) opens with a description of the procedure of purification from contamination by a corpse, most notably with the ashes of a red cow. It is interesting that one of the verbs mentioned in the process (Bamidbar 19:12) is yit'chata יתחטא - "he shall cleanse himself". There would seem to be a connection between yit'chata and chata חטא - "he sinned". But aren't those terms opposites?

In addition to the hitpael form found here, we find the piel form חיטא in other places in the Tanach. This too means to cleanse, and chitui חיטוי in modern Hebrew means a disinfectant. Again, what is the connection between chitui and chet חטא - sin?

We are familiar with such contradicting terms in English as well. They are called autoantonyms, or contronyms, meaning a homonym which is also an antonym. Some of them are just coincidences with unrelated etymologies such as cleave, meaning both "adhere" and "separate". But there are a number of words in English where the verb means to remove the noun. "To peel" means to remove the peel, "to pit" means to remove the pit, "to dust" means to remove dust, "to shell" - remove the shell, "to seed" - to remove the seeds.

According to Ruth Almagor-Ramon in the book Rega Shel Ivrit, Hebrew has the same phenomenon as well, in the piel form of some verbs, where it can mean "to remove". Shoresh שורש is a "root", להשתרש is "to take root" but לשרש is "to remove from the roots". The verb סקל means "he stoned, executed by stoning", but סיקל means "he freed from stones". Zanav זנב means "tail", but according to Klein, לזנב means "he routed the rear of an army, lit. "he cut off the tail."

And therefore we can understand the connection between chitui and chet, as an example of a contronym. The verb חיטא means "to free from sin, to cleanse from sin". Yit'chata - "he shall free himself (from sin, impurity)."

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kamatz

According to Klein, the root קמץ means "to enclose with the hand, grasp, take a handful, close, shut". By a switch of the labial consonants, we find two other related verbs with similar meanings: קפץ and קבץ, to which Klein adds כוץ as well. He also connects it with the Aramaic קמעא, meaning a little, a handful. It also might be connected to קמיע kamia - an amulet, related to the Arabic "qama'a (= he tamed, curbed, bridled.)" Steinberg goes further and connects קמץ and the other verbs above to a series of words beginning with the same two letters and having related meanings: קמט - "to grasp" or "to wrinkle", and kemach קמח - flour ground fine and small.

From קמץ we get a number of interesting words. A kamtzan קמצן is a miser, who holds his hand tight. Jastrow provides us with three small animals named kamtza קמצא - a locust (the related קפץ means "to hop"), an ant ("scraper, collector") and a snail (which Jastrow feels might be an error for לימצא, and Steinsaltz on Shabbat 77b says that comes from the Old French limace, meaning slug or snail.)

There are some drashot that connect the name Kamtza, from the famous story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, with kamtza meaning locusts. However, Steinsaltz (Gittin 55b) says the name Kamtza derives from the Greek kompsos, meaning elegant and refined, but also with a more negative meaning - crafty.

According to some, Medieval Latin camisia is a borrowing through Late Classical Greek kamision from the Central Semitic root קמץ represented by Ugaritic qms ('garment') and Arabic qamis ('shirt'). From camisia we get such English words as camisole and chemise.

[Others, however claim the development worked in the opposite direction: that Arabic qamis is derived from the Latin camisia (shirt), which in its turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European kem ('cloak').]

Another derivative of קמץ is the vowel kamatz (or qamatz). According to Horowitz (pg. 56):

The verb קמץ means to draw together. The Ashkenazim pronounce the קמץ with lips drawn together. That's how the vowel got its name. If the men who wrote our present niqud pronounced the קמץ as do the Sephardim, "ah", they would certainly have never called it קמץ.

While he doesn't mention it, I assume that explains the vowel פתח patach (open) as well.

As a final note, to return to the subject of shirts, Stahl writes that there were those who suggested calling a T-shirt in Hebrew a hultzat kamatz חולצת קמץ (based on the T shape of the kamatz), but it never caught on...

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