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.
chotenet and chamot
וַיִּשְׁמַ֞ע יִתְר֨וֹ כֹהֵ֤ן מִדְיָן֙ חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֵת֩ כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ לְמֹשֶׁ֔ה וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל עַמּ֑וֹ כִּֽי־הוֹצִ֧יא יְהֹוָ֛ה אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel His people, how that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.
In this week's parsha, Yitro is referred to as the choten חותן of Moshe - his father-in-law. In proper Hebrew, there is are different terms for the husband's parents and the wife's parents. Until I started writing this - I could never remember which was which. When I would refer to my inlaws in Hebrew, I would avoid the issue by saying "my wife's mother" or "my wife's father". But now I have a public forum and I need to know what's what.
Safa-Ivrit does a good job of explaining the issue. To summarize - choten and chotenet חותנת are the wife's parents, and cham חם and chamot חמות are the husband's parents. The site offers this tip to remember which is which - the choten and chotenet marry off - mechatnim מחתנים - their daughter, and the cham and chamot welcome their new daughter-in-law warmly - b'chom בחום.
Chamot has the same structure as achot אחות - sister. So while it sounds plural, it's really singular. (So the joke about שפך חמתך (shfoch chamat'cha) being an excuse to throw your mother-in-law out of the house during the seder doesn't work - it would need to be שפך חמותך - shfoch chamot'cha.)
In any case, if you do mix it up, you don't need to worry much. Even in the time of the Talmud, there were cases where the distinction was blurred.
Now everyone agrees that the word for son-in-law is chatan. However, years ago I came across a pamphlet that was trying to show how Jastrow's dictionary was not a serious work. (Perhaps it was this one by Shlomo Alter Halperin? I really don't recall.) The only proof that I remember was from Jastrow's definition of chatan, where he writes: "connection, son-in-law; bride-groom".
segula, segel and mesugal
וְעַתָּ֗ה אִם־שָׁמ֤וֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ בְּקֹלִ֔י וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֑י וִהְיִ֨יתֶם לִ֤י סְגֻלָּה֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים כִּי־לִ֖י כׇּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine;
Way back in 2006, I mentioned briefly the etymology of segulah:
segula סגולה - "property" is related to the Akkadian word sugullu - herd of cattle
And a few months later, I pointed out that segula is not related to segol סגול - "violet, purple" (for a more in depth discussion see Elon Gilad's article here.)
But segula deserves much more attention. It's a word with a fascinating history, that has led to many different meanings. Let's take a look.
Much of what I'll be discussing here is based on an article (in Hebrew) by M.Z Kaddari, in his book The Medieval Heritage of Modern Hebrew Usage (Dvir, 1970). Here's a section of the English abstract which summarizes his extensive discussion Hebrew about segula:
An instructive instance in the dialects of emotional connotation is the word segula. In Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, this word was an emotional one ('valued property', 'peculiar treasure'); however, it seems to occur as a pure concept word also ('treasure', 'fortune'). This emotional change happens similarly in the language of the Piyyutim (Liturgical Poetry) and in Medieval Hebrew. Later on in Middle Hebrew, influenced by Arabic, the word designated 'characteristic feature' too, without any emotional overtone (the former emotional overtone had disappeared). But it had been used in special environments (designating objects endowed with the power of recovery); consequently, an emotional secondary meaning had developed in it ('magic quality'), which has survived up to our days in some vernacular usages.
yovel
לֹא־תִגַּ֨ע בּ֜וֹ יָ֗ד כִּֽי־סָק֤וֹל יִסָּקֵל֙ אוֹ־יָרֹ֣ה יִיָּרֶ֔ה אִם־בְּהֵמָ֥ה אִם־אִ֖ישׁ לֹ֣א יִחְיֶ֑ה בִּמְשֹׁךְ֙ הַיֹּבֵ֔ל הֵ֖מָּה יַעֲל֥וּ בָהָֽר׃
no hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live; when the ram’s horn soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.’
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.
More from Balashon on Yitro
At the table
- Read Exodus 18:1 aloud. Now that you know where חֹתֵ֣ן comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say סְגֻלָּה֙ in Exodus 19:5? 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?