Words from this week's reading, traced to their roots by David Curwin, the Hebrew Language Detective. Each begins with the verse where the word appears and continues in his own words.
yovel
וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּ֗ם אֵ֣ת שְׁנַ֤ת הַחֲמִשִּׁים֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וּקְרָאתֶ֥ם דְּר֛וֹר בָּאָ֖רֶץ לְכׇל־יֹשְׁבֶ֑יהָ יוֹבֵ֥ל הִוא֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְשַׁבְתֶּ֗ם אִ֚ישׁ אֶל־אֲחֻזָּת֔וֹ וְאִ֥ישׁ אֶל־מִשְׁפַּחְתּ֖וֹ תָּשֻֽׁבוּ׃
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
After discussing shofar, we'll now talk about a synonym - yovel יובל. We find yovel being used as another term for a shofar in Shmot 19:13:
בִּמְשֹׁךְ, הַיֹּבֵל, הֵמָּה, יַעֲלוּ בָהָר - "When the yovel sounds a long blast, they may go up the mountain."
How do we know that yovel refers to a ram's horn? We see in Yehoshua chapter 6 that the yovel is an animal. And Rabbi Akiva in Rosh HaShana 26a says:
"When I visited Arabia I discovered that there they call the male ram 'Yovela'"
Steinsaltz points out that the word yovela does not appear in Arabic. However, it does appear with that meaning in Phoenician and Punic (for example in the Punic Marseilles Tariff, line 7.) Kutscher points out that the region called "Arabia", actually meant Arabia Petraea, whose capital was the famous town of Petra, where they spoke a dialect of Aramaic-Hebrew.
Klein writes that yovel's meaning of ram derived from the root יבל, meaning "to bear, carry" and therefore the word originally meant "leader of the flock, bellwether".
So yovel at first meant "ram", and the meaning was later limited to "ram's horn". The word's meaning developed even further. In Vayikra 25 we have the description of a special year of emancipation, held every 50 years. The advent of the year was proclaimed by the sounding of the shofar (Vayikra 25:9), and was called the yovel (25:10). So, as Kutscher points out, when the Torah discusses the yovel, it really means "[the year of the blowing of the] yovel." (For further discussion, see Ibn Ezra and Ramban on 25:10).
The Hebrew word made its way into Greek - iobelos and iabelaios - and from there to Latin - jubilaeus.
geula
כִּֽי־יָמ֣וּךְ אָחִ֔יךָ וּמָכַ֖ר מֵאֲחֻזָּת֑וֹ וּבָ֤א גֹֽאֲלוֹ֙ הַקָּרֹ֣ב אֵלָ֔יו וְגָאַ֕ל אֵ֖ת מִמְכַּ֥ר אָחִֽיו׃
If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come, and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold.
When we think of the word גְּאֻלָּה geula - we typically think of a divine redemption or salvation, perhaps with a messianic bent. It could be spiritual or it could be physical, but God is the one doing the redeeming.
However, the root גאל - "to redeem" - doesn't have that meaning exclusively. In the Tanakh, we find it frequently referring to redemption by humans: redemption of land, or redemption of other humans (for example, slaves).
For example, in Vayikra 25:25, if an Israelite becomes poor and sells part of his ancestral property, the Torah says:
וּבָא גֹאֲלוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו וְגָאַל אֵת מִמְכַּר אָחִיו
“His nearest goel shall come and redeem what his relative sold.”
The goel here is the close relative who has the right, and in some cases the responsibility, to recover property that has left the family.
The same chapter extends this role to a relative who has sold himself into servitude. A brother, uncle, cousin, or other close relative can redeem him.
This is also the background to the role of the goel in the book of Ruth. Boaz is a goel because he belongs to Naomi's family circle. There is an even closer relative who has the first claim, and when he declines, Boaz steps in.
In Ruth 4:6, the nearer relative tells Boaz:
גְּאַל־לְךָ אַתָּה אֶת־גְּאֻלָּתִי כִּי לֹא אוּכַל לִגְאֹל
"You redeem my geula, for I cannot redeem."
ikar, akar and akeret bayit
וְכִ֣י תַשִּׂ֗יג יַ֣ד גֵּ֤ר וְתוֹשָׁב֙ עִמָּ֔ךְ וּמָ֥ךְ אָחִ֖יךָ עִמּ֑וֹ וְנִמְכַּ֗ר לְגֵ֤ר תּוֹשָׁב֙ עִמָּ֔ךְ א֥וֹ לְעֵ֖קֶר מִשְׁפַּ֥חַת גֵּֽר׃
And if a stranger who is a settler with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger who is a settler with thee, or to the offshoot of a stranger’s family,
Let's take a look at the Hebrew root עקר. As a verb, in the kal form it means "to uproot, extract, displace" and in the piel form means "to neuter, spay, sterilize." The adjective עקר akar, or in the feminine akara עקרה means "infertile, barren." And the noun ikar (spelled either עִקָּר or עיקר) means "essence, main thing/part, gist", with the associated adjective ikari עיקרי meaning "essential, fundamental, major" and the related ikaron עקרון - "principle" and ekroni עקרוני - "of principle, basic."
What is the connection between these various meanings?
They all derive from the sense of "root." That is the original meaning of ikar. That sense isn't found in Biblical Hebrew (although a related word, eker - "offshoot", appears in Vayikra 25:47), but is common in Aramaic, and can be found as such in the Aramaic sections of Daniel (4:12,20,23). Those verses all have the phrase עִקַּר שׇׁרְשׁוֹהִי, which is generally translated as "the stump with its roots." But since both words mean root in Aramaic, perhaps a more precise translation would be "root of the roots" or "the main root." From Aramaic, ikar entered rabbinic Hebrew, where it has the literal meaning of root (for example in Mishna Maasrot 3:10) and the more metaphorical sense of the "important thing" (as in Mishna Avot 1:17).
English relates to the word "root" similarly, with it also having the meaning "the cause, source or origin of something." And just as in English, the verb "to root" means "to pull up by the roots, to uproot", so too does the Hebrew verb akar mean "to extract, uproot" (see for example Tzefania 2:4 and Kohelet 3:2). This is an example of a contronym (a homonym which is also an antonym, and we've seen them before).
At the table
- Read Leviticus 25:10 aloud. Now that you know where יוֹבֵ֥ל comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say גֹֽאֲלוֹ֙ in Leviticus 25:25? What would be lost with a more ordinary word?
- Which of this week’s words do you use in Modern Hebrew? Has the meaning moved since the Torah used it?