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.
tzfardea
וַיֵּ֤ט אַהֲרֹן֙ אֶת־יָד֔וֹ עַ֖ל מֵימֵ֣י מִצְרָ֑יִם וַתַּ֙עַל֙ הַצְּפַרְדֵּ֔עַ וַתְּכַ֖ס אֶת־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
The Hebrew word for "frog", צְפַרְדֵּעַ tzfardea, appears 13 times in the Tanakh. All of them are related to the plague in Egypt. Eleven of them are in the book of Shemot during the narrative of that plague, and two are from separate chapters of Tehillim recounting the plagues - Tehillim 78:45 and Tehillim 105:30.
Klein provides the following etymology:
Related to JAram. אוּרְדּעָא, עוּרדְּעָא, Syr. אוּרְדְּעָא, Arab. ḍafda‘, ḍifdi‘ (= frog).
He also points to his entry for the verb ערדע:
to croak; lit.: ‘to make the sound of the frog’. [From Aram. עֻרדּעָא (= frog), which is related to Heb. צְפַרְדֵּע.]
While Klein doesn't say it explicitly, many scholars claim that the origin of tzfardea is ultimately onomatopoeic - it sounds like the sound of a frog croaking (for example, see Encyclopedia Mikrait, entry צפרדע). This is more clearly seen in the Aramaic form urda or the Arabic form dafda, which both sound like a frog. The assumption is that Hebrew might have added a consonant to the Semitic root - either a resh to the version expressed in the Arabic form or a tzade to the one in the Aramaic form, creating a longer word which doesn't immediately carry the association of a frog's croak. The five letters of tzfardea are rare in Hebrew words, which led some scholars to propose that it was borrowed from Egyptian or another non-Semitic language. But since no evidence has been found in those languages for such a word, the onomatopoeia theory is the most convincing.
In his book "Wordplay" in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Scott B. Noegel describes the use of this onomatopoeia as a literary device in the story of the plague (page 61):
ababuot
וְהָיָ֣ה לְאָבָ֔ק עַ֖ל כׇּל־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְהָיָ֨ה עַל־הָאָדָ֜ם וְעַל־הַבְּהֵמָ֗ה לִשְׁחִ֥ין פֹּרֵ֛חַ אֲבַעְבֻּעֹ֖ת בְּכׇל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
And it shall become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.’
In this weeks parasha, in the plague of boils (sh'chin שחין) we come across a familiar word: אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת avabuot. This word only appears here (Shmot 9:9) but is familiar in modern Hebrew as the "pox" in "chicken pox" - אבעבעות רוח ababuot ruach (most likely based on the German Windpocken, which this site says the "wind" means "filled with air", "not really substantial".) Earlier generations would have associated ababuot with smallpox.
Klein writes that אבעבועה - "blister, boil" is formed from בעבע with the prosthetic alef (as in אצבע) and the suffix heh. The root בעבע , he claims, is of imitative origin, like its English equivalent, bubble. It is related to the root בעה , which also means "to bubble" and בועה buah - bubble.
In an interesting comment, he says there may be a connection between בעה - "to bubble" and בעה - "to seek, ask questions, desire, pray". He writes:
Several scholars identify בעה (bubble) and בעה (seek) by assuming that the original meaning of this base was 'to swell', whence developed the meanings 'to bubble' on the one hand, and 'to swell with desire' on the other.
We are familiar with such derivatives of בעה as b'aya בעיה - problem, which developed from the Aramaic בעיא - question, and many Talmudic phrases like כדבעי - "as required, properly" and אי בעית אימא - "if you like I can say".
kusemet
וְהַחִטָּ֥ה וְהַכֻּסֶּ֖מֶת לֹ֣א נֻכּ֑וּ כִּ֥י אֲפִילֹ֖ת הֵֽנָּה׃
But the wheat and the spelt were not smitten; for they ripen late.—
In the previous post, we mentioned se'ora שעורה - "barley", so this is a good opportunity to finish the discussion of the five grains of the Land of Israel. There's not much to say about the etymology of se'ora other than to quote Klein who says that it's related to se'ar שער - "hair", and literally means "the hairy or bearded (grain)".
Chita חיטה - "wheat" also has a fairly simple explanation. Klein points out that it probably derives from the root חנט, meaning "to ripen" (with a dropped nun). And we've already discussed shibolet shual שבולת שועל - "oats" and shifon שיפון - "rye" (at least according to their use in modern Hebrew.) What's left? Kusemet כוסמת.
As with shibolet shual and shifon, the identity of kusemet isn't clear. The word appears in the Bible (Shemot 9:32, Yeshayahu 28:25, Yechezkel 4:9) and in the Talmudic literature. The medieval rabbis generally identified it as spelt, but the current scholarly opinion is that it was more likely emmer wheat (unlike emmer, spelt has not been found in Egypt and the Land of Israel in archeological excavations of biblical sites). The name probably comes from the root כסם - "to shear, clip", and "the names derives from the short hairs of the ears which look as though they have been cut" (Encyclopedia Judaica, "Wheat"). However, with kusemet there's an added twist: in Modern Hebrew the word means "buckwheat". Unlike shibolet shual and shifon, there's no halachic opinion that buckwheat is one of the five grains (with all of the laws relating to them). So how did this come to be?
I couldn't find any clear answers, but after a lot of research, I believe I have a possible theory.
More from Balashon on Vaera
At the table
- Read Exodus 8:2 aloud. Now that you know where הַצְּפַרְדֵּ֔עַ comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say אֲבַעְבֻּעֹ֖ת in Exodus 9:9? 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?