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.
anah
וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גׇר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב׃
And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
The root (or perhaps better to say roots) ענה anah is generally said to have four meanings in Hebrew. Klein identifies them as follows::
Let’s look at each of them and the words deriving from them.
This includes the senses of “answer, reply, respond”. It’s the most popular use of the verb in Hebrew today. A particular type of response is responding as a witness, i.e., to testify. This is the sense found in the ninth commandment:
לֹא־תַעֲנֶה בְרֵעֲךָ עֵד שָׁקֶר
“You shall not testify against your neighbor as a false witness.” (Shemot 20:13)
Derivatives include: הֵעָנוּת he’anut - “response, consent” and מַעֲנֶה ma’aneh - “answer, reply, solution.”
Klein treats this as a distinct root. Others say that it reflects a form of singing - where one sings, and others respond with a refrain. This distinction can be found in translations of the phrase וַתַּעַן לָהֶם מִרְיָם (Shemot 15:21) describing the song Miriam led after the splitting of the Red Sea. Some translations render it as “And Miriam chanted for them” and others have “And Miriam answered them.”
One derivative of the verb is עַנּוֹת anot - “singing”, which only appears in one biblical verse, when Moshe tells Yehoshua what he hears from the activity around the Golden Calf:
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵין קוֹל עֲנוֹת גְּבוּרָה וְאֵין קוֹל עֲנוֹת חֲלוּשָׁה קוֹל עַנּוֹת אָנֹכִי שֹׁמֵעַ׃
“But he said: Not the sound of the song of prevailing, not the sound of the song of failing, it is the sound of choral-song that I hear!” (Shemot 32:18)
Klein provides a number of different meanings for this verb sense: to be bowed down, be afflicted, was low, was humbled, or in the transitive sense, to humble, oppress, afflict, or violate (a woman). In Modern Hebrew, the most common meaning is “to torture.”
ba'ar, bi'er and be'ir
בָּר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בָּעִ֑יר וּבָר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה׃
Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
A reader asked about the origin of the biblical word be'ir בעיר, meaning "cattle" or "domesticated animals." Let's take a look.
It appears only six times in the Tanach: Bereshit 45:17; Shemot 22:4; Bamidbar 20:4,8,11, and Tehilim 78:48. In each case it refers to animals owned by humans. One verse in particular (Shemot 22:4) can perhaps shed light on where the word comes from:
כִּי יַבְעֶר־אִישׁ שָׂדֶה אוֹ־כֶרֶם וְשִׁלַּח אֶת־בעירה [בְּעִירוֹ] וּבִעֵר בִּשְׂדֵה אַחֵר מֵיטַב שָׂדֵהוּ וּמֵיטַב כַּרְמוֹ יְשַׁלֵּם׃
When a man lets his livestock loose to graze in another’s land, and so allows a field or a vineyard to be grazed bare, he must make restitution for the impairment of that field or vineyard.
Be'ir is translated here as "livestock." But in addition to be'ir we also have the verb בער bi'er, rendered here as "graze." In and of itself, that's not so surprising - animals do graze, and verbs and nouns are often related. The question is did the noun be'ir come from the verb בער, or did the verb provide us with the noun? I haven't found a conclusive answer to that question. Some sources say that the noun is the source (like Klein), others say the verb is the source (like Gesenius), and a surprising number aren't really sure (BDB, Ben Yehuda, Kaddari.)
One thing that is clear is that the verb בער has more than one meaning. In fact, another meaning is found in the very next verse!
כִּי־תֵצֵא אֵשׁ וּמָצְאָה קֹצִים וְנֶאֱכַל גָּדִישׁ אוֹ הַקָּמָה אוֹ הַשָּׂדֶה שַׁלֵּם יְשַׁלֵּם הַמַּבְעִר אֶת־הַבְּעֵרָה׃
dalak
יַכְּכָ֣ה יְ֠הֹוָ֠ה בַּשַּׁחֶ֨פֶת וּבַקַּדַּ֜חַת וּבַדַּלֶּ֗קֶת וּבַֽחַרְחֻר֙ וּבַחֶ֔רֶב וּבַשִּׁדָּפ֖וֹן וּבַיֵּרָק֑וֹן וּרְדָפ֖וּךָ עַ֥ד אׇבְדֶֽךָ׃
The LORD will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with drought, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
On Chanukah we light the candles - מדליקים את הנרות madlikim et ha nerot. The root of madlik מדליק - is dalak דלק - "burn, kindle", and is familiar from many related words such as delek דלק - "fuel", the verb tadlek תדלק - "to refuel" (the tiphel - like hiphil and shaphel, also a causative form of the verb), and daleket דלקת - which likely meant fever in Biblical Hebrew (Devarim 28:22) and today means "inflammation".
The verb dalak appears nine times in Biblical Hebrew as well, and in about half the appearances it also means "to burn". However in the other half it has a different meaning - "to pursue, chase," such as in Bereshit 31:36 - מַה חַטָּאתִי, כִּי דָלַקְתָּ אַחֲרָי - "What is my sin that you should pursue me". (In some of the verses there is some disagreement as to which meaning applies, such as Yeshaya 5:11. Rashi and Radak say it means "burning" while Ibn Ezra says "chasing". Kutscher (p. 88) writes that perhaps this is a play on words and both senses are alluded to.)
What is the connection, if any, between "burning" and "chasing"?
Not surprisingly, there are a few opinions on this issue. One opinion is that the original meaning was to burn, and the concept of "chasing" came later - in the sense of "hot pursuit", as we say in English. Kaddari finds a similar development in Akkadian, where hamatu means both to burn and to hasten.
A second opinion is that the first meaning was "to chase", and later came the idea of burning, because of the way the fire chases the wick. This idea can be found in Rashi on Tehilim 7:14, who says that "every delika דליקה is chasing".
More from Balashon on Ki Tavo
At the table
- Read Deuteronomy 26:5 aloud. Now that you know where וְעָנִ֨יתָ comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say בָּעִ֑יר in Deuteronomy 28:3? 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?