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.
Khartoum and hartumim
וַיְהִ֤י בַבֹּ֙קֶר֙ וַתִּפָּ֣עֶם רוּח֔וֹ וַיִּשְׁלַ֗ח וַיִּקְרָ֛א אֶת־כׇּל־חַרְטֻמֵּ֥י מִצְרַ֖יִם וְאֶת־כׇּל־חֲכָמֶ֑יהָ וַיְסַפֵּ֨ר פַּרְעֹ֤ה לָהֶם֙ אֶת־חֲלֹמ֔וֹ וְאֵין־פּוֹתֵ֥ר אוֹתָ֖ם לְפַרְעֹֽה׃
And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.
Reader Zvi writes:
With the impending partition of Sudan in the news lately, it would be interesting if you could address the multiple uses of the Hebrew word
חרטום
In Exodus 7:11 and 7:22, it's the word used for the Egyptian magicians.
In modern Hebrew, it's used for the prow of a ship, an elephant's trunk, and a rocket nose cone
And it's also the name of the capital city of Sudan.
What, if anything, is the relationship between these?
Good question - I've been meaning to write about this for a while.
First of all, chartom חרטום meaning "beak, nose, trunk", as well as the borrowed meanings you mentioned, is, as Klein writes, "enlarged" from the Hebrew chotam חוטם, meaning "nose, snout". (I discussed earlier the background to the more popular word for nose, af אף.)
The name of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, is certainly related, as described in Placenames of the World :
Founded in 1821 as an Egyptian army camp, the city has an Arabic name, from al-khurtum, a short form of ras al-khurtum, "end of an elephant's trunk," from ra's, "head," "end," al, "the," and khurtum, "trunk." The reference is to the narrow stretch of land here between the White Nile and Blue Nile.
But what about the hartumim חרטמים of Egypt? There are a number of theories. Ben Yehuda, in the footnote to his dictionary entry, writes that the etymology is unclear. He says that some derive from the root חרט, to engrave. Those that follow this theory claim it refers to their ability to write the hieroglyphics. He then quotes a theory that the word is related to chotam, "nose", because it was the practice of these sorcerers to speak through their nose.
edut, od, moed, and muad
וַיֹּ֧אמֶר אֵלָ֛יו יְהוּדָ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר הָעֵ֣ד הֵעִד֩ בָּ֨נוּ הָאִ֤ישׁ לֵאמֹר֙ לֹֽא־תִרְא֣וּ פָנַ֔י בִּלְתִּ֖י אֲחִיכֶ֥ם אִתְּכֶֽם׃
And Judah spoke unto him, saying: ‘The man did earnestly forewarn us, saying: Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you.
The Hebrew word for testimony is edut עֵדוּת. Two related words are ed עֵד - "witness" and teudah תְּעוּדָה - originally also meaning "testimony," but today means "certificate, document.". Klein provides two possible roots for the etymology of edut:
Prob. from עוד and lit. meaning ‘exhorting sign’, ‘reminder’. Several other scholars derive עֵדוּת from יעד (= to appoint, to fix), and compare Akka. adē (= statements, commandments).
Each of those roots provides many familiar Hebrew words. Let's look at each of them.
Klein defines עוד as "to return, repeat, do again." Therefore, he writes that the verb העיד (the source of edut) means "to affirmed solemnly", and originally meant "to repeat." Other meanings of that root include "to warn" and "to bear witness, attest, testify."
From the more general sense of "to return, repeat," we get from עוד the verbs עודד and התעודד - "to be restored, strengthened." As a noun, it appears as idud עִדּוּד - "encouragement."
Two words deriving from the root עוד are:
od עוֹד - an adverb with a number of meanings, such as "more, another," "yet, still," and "already." According to Klein, it was originally a noun meaning "duration, continuance."
eid עֵיד - a Talmudic word for an idolatrous festival. It is cognate with the Arabic eid which simply means "festival." Klein writes that the word literally meant "that which returns (every year)." Klein adds that a variant spelling is אֵיד, likely due to an association with the homonym אֵיד, which means "calamity, misfortune," but is unrelated etymologically to eid deriving from עוד.
botnim
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֜ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל אֲבִיהֶ֗ם אִם־כֵּ֣ן ׀ אֵפוֹא֮ זֹ֣את עֲשׂוּ֒ קְח֞וּ מִזִּמְרַ֤ת הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ בִּכְלֵיכֶ֔ם וְהוֹרִ֥ידוּ לָאִ֖ישׁ מִנְחָ֑ה מְעַ֤ט צֳרִי֙ וּמְעַ֣ט דְּבַ֔שׁ נְכֹ֣את וָלֹ֔ט בׇּטְנִ֖ים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים׃
And their father Israel said unto them: ‘If it be so now, do this: take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and ladanum, nuts, and almonds;
Previously, we discussed shaked שקד - almond. While shaked appears in a number of verses, a different nut - botnim בוטנים -shows up only once, in Bereshit 43:11 -
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲבִיהֶם, אִם-כֵּן אֵפוֹא זֹאת עֲשׂוּ--קְחוּ מִזִּמְרַת הָאָרֶץ בִּכְלֵיכֶם, וְהוֹרִידוּ לָאִישׁ מִנְחָה: מְעַט צֳרִי, וּמְעַט דְּבַשׁ, נְכֹאת וָלֹט, בָּטְנִים וּשְׁקֵדִים.
Now for those of us familiar with modern Hebrew, we know botnim as peanuts. However, the English translation tells us a different story (I'm using the JPS, but all the English translations agree on this point):
Then their father Israel said to them, "If it must be so, do this: take some of the choice products of the land in your baggage, and carry them down as a gift for the man - some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, pistachio nuts [botnim] and almonds.
So how did we get from pistachio nuts to peanuts? I found the answer in Yitzhak Avineri's book Yad Halashon (page 73). He points out that the word pistak appears in the Talmud (e.g. Gittin 59a, Yerushalmi Kilaim 27a) - either as פיסתק or פיסטק. This word was borrowed from the Greek, which also gives us the English word pistachio:
from It. pistacchio, from L. pistacium "pistachio nut," from Gk. pistakion, from pistake "pistachio tree," from Pers. pista "pistachio tree."
The pistachio is a nut that has been cultivated in the Middle East since ancient times; however, the peanut is native to South America. When it was brought back to Europe, each country gave the peanut a name in its own language. The Germans call the peanut erdnuss - literally "earth nut". And following this pattern, there are those that call the peanut egoz adama אגוז אדמה - "earth nut".
More from Balashon on Miketz
At the table
- Read Genesis 41:8 aloud. Now that you know where חַרְטֻמֵּ֥י comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say הָעֵ֣ד in Genesis 43:3? 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?