nature
almond
At a glance
In short
Shaked is the Hebrew word for the almond. It seems to be related to ש-ק-ד, the root of watchfulness and diligence, and the link between the two senses may already be at work in the nevuah of Yirmiyahu 1:11 to 12, where almond plays on vigilant. Rabbi Saadia Gaon, cited by Radak and Ibn Ezra, takes luz as almond, as in Arabic, though many Rishonim read it as hazel, and Targum Onkelos never once renders shaked as luz. Rabbi Klein's upshot is a hedged one: it seems that luz is an Aramaic word and shaked a genuinely Hebrew one, in which case the two mean exactly the same thing and differ only by language.
Distinctions
Shaked (שקד)
The plain Hebrew word: shekeidim among the gifts Yaakov sent down to Mitzrayim (Bereishis 43:11), the shekeidim that Aharon's staff produced (Bamidbar 17:23), and the almond-shaped cups meshukadim on the Menorah (Shemos 25:33 to 34, 37:19 to 20).
The word seems to belong to the root ש-ק-ד, which carries watchfulness, vigilance, diligence, persistence.
- Grammarians as early as Ibn Janach (990-1055) and Radak (1160-1235) intimated a connection between the two senses, explaining that the almond tree is especially zealous in bringing out its blossom faster than other trees, though Machberes Menachem does not seem to draw the connection.
- The botanist Dr. Joshua D. Klein of the Volcani Center gives a second explanation, that shaked suits the almond because it tends to stay on the tree rather than drop when ripe as most fleshy fruits do, so that the nut is "diligent" in hanging on longer than most fruits.
The link may even predate the medakdekim, as it seems to be found in Hashem's pun to Yirmiyahu: "What do you see, Yirmiyahu? And I said, I see a makel shaked. And Hashem said to me, you have seen well, for shoked ani al devari la'asoso" (Yirmiyahu 1:11 to 12). Rashi: just as the shaked is overly attentive to bear fruit before every other tree, so is Hashem attentive to carry out what He told the navi. The Yerushalmi (Taanis 4:5) paraphrases the shaked of that pasuk with luz.
In Modern Hebrew shaked also has an anatomical sense, as luz does, but not the mythical luz bone: it means the tonsils. Even-Shoshan's dictionary calls that neologism a folk usage based on the resemblance between a tonsil's shape and an almond's. Shkadiyah, the almond tree as against shaked the nut, seems to have been coined by the poet Levin Kipnis (1894-1990) in his well-known Tu B'Shvat song.
English "almond" sounds Arabic because of the al- prefix, but the Arabic for almond is luz, as in Aramaic. The word's ancestor seems instead to be the Latin amygdala, through various intermediate forms; some argue the al- came about by contamination from the last syllable of the Latin etymon, others that the Latin became Spanish almendra under Arabic influence, al- being the Spanish definite article, and reached English through Spanish.
Luz (לוז)
Yaakov set luz rods in the animals' troughs (Bereishis 30:37). Targum Onkelos leaves luz untranslated. Radak and Ibn Ezra cite Rabbi Saadia Gaon that luz there means almond, as it does in Arabic; Ibn Ezra adds that Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic are one family of languages, so a word may carry across.
Targum Yonasan and Targum Neofiti support the equation from the other side: they render the shekeidim of Bereishis 43:11 as meshach diluzin, almond oil or butter, and the shekeidim of Bamidbar 17:23 as luzin.
- On that reading, Rabbi Klein says, it seems luz is Aramaic and shaked Hebrew, and the two mean exactly the same thing. Dr. Gary Rendsburg of Rutgers University adds that the Torah nonetheless uses the Aramaic luz in the story of how Lavan the Aramean tried to swindle Yaakov because the story happened in Aram, the home of Aramaic, so that an Aramaic word in an Aramean setting lends the account authenticity.
- Rabbi Klein offers an alternative of his own, marked as a thought rather than a ruling: perhaps in Hebrew shaked is the almond fruit or nut itself and names the tree only in a borrowed sense, while luz names the tree directly; Avraham Even-Shoshan's dictionary seems to follow that approach.
Not everyone equates them.
- Another version of Rabbi Saadia Gaon's commentary has luz as the silverleaf poplar;
- Menachem Ibn Saruk writes that the luz is related to the cedar;
- and there are many opinions that take luz as hazel (Rashi and Tosafos to Bechoros 8a, Rashi to Bereishis 30:38 and to Shoftim 1:26).
Targum Onkelos seems to follow one of these, since he renders shaked consistently as segd (Bereishis 43:11, Bamidbar 17:23, and see the Targum to Koheles 12:5) and never as luz; segd means almond in Syriac and Ethiopic and seems itself to derive from the Hebrew shaked by the interchange of gimmel and kuf.
- Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: the biliteral ל-ז means sideward deviation, whether physical movement to the side or moral swerving from the straight path. The luz tree fits because its shoots branch off the trunk very early, unlike other trees. The demonstrative halaz, "that one," comes from the same root, its antecedent typically being someone far off, removed from here.
- Midrash Sechel Tov reads halaz homiletically the other way, connecting it to the luz tree's outward majesty, where it is used of Yitzchak (Bereishis 24:65), Yosef (Bereishis 37:19), Zecharyah (Zecharyah 2:8), and Eretz Yisrael (Yechezkel 36:35). Rabbi Klein adds that the almond's aesthetic quality may also be what is reflected in the almond-like decorations fixed (meshukadim) to the Menorah.
Solomon Löwisohn (1789-1821), a Hungarian Maskilic scholar, derived Lusitania, the Roman name for Portugal, from the Aramaic luz, on the ground that the Phoenicians reaching the Iberian peninsula found almond trees in abundance; he adduces Portuguese place-names such as Calmende, the house of almonds, and Castelmende, the castle of almonds, both tied to Spanish and Portuguese almendron, almond. This etymology for Lusitania is not widely accepted nowadays.
Luz the city
Luz was renamed Beis El, the site of Yaakov's dream (Bereishis 28:19); the Canaanite who showed the tribe of Yosef the hidden way in later founded a second Luz in the land of the Hittites (Shoftim 1:23 to 26).
- Bereishis Rabbah 69:8, though it remains unclear whether it means the Luz in Eretz Yisrael or the other one: its people were not mixed up when Sancheriv conquered the area, it was not destroyed by Nevuchadnetzar, and the malach hamaves has no dominion there.
- Rabbi Abba bar Kahana: one who enters it blossoms with mitzvos and good deeds like a luz.
- Chazal there also say that as an almond has no opening, so the city was sealed; Rabbi Simon adds that a luz tree stood at its entrance, and Rabbi Pinchas bar Chamah that the way in was a cave whose mouth a luz tree concealed.
- Rabbi J. D. Eisenstein (1854-1956) claimed the Luz of this midrash is the Tibetan city of Lhasa, whose people are reputed to be long-lived and so could be said to elude the malach hamaves.
The luz bone, said to be the kernel from which a person is revived at techiyas hameisim (Vayikra Rabbah 18:1) and nurtured only through melaveh malkah (Mateh Moshe 513), belongs to the same word.
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
ל-ו-ז
To turn aside, to incline away; נָלוֹז is what is bent aside. And the לוּז, called avellanier in the vernacular, which Rav Saadiah Gaon took for the almond.
Turning aside
אַל־ יָלֻזוּ מֵעֵינֶיךָ נְצֹר תֻּשִׁיָּה (Mishlei 3:21), let them not turn aside from your eyes, keep sound wisdom, which he explains as let them not depart and not incline away from before your eyes. In the heavy form, אַל־ יַלִּיזוּ מֵֽעֵינֶיךָ שָׁמְרֵם בְּתוֹךְ לְבָבֶֽךָ (Mishlei 4:21), let them not turn aside from your eyes, keep them within your heart, where the dagesh stands in place of the quiescent letter, as it does also in וַיַּלִּינוּ (Bamidbar 14:36), and they stirred up complaint.
Crooked
כִּי תֽוֹעֲבַת י"י נָלוֹז (Mishlei 3:32), for the crooked one is an abomination to Hashem. So too וַתִּבְטְחוּ בְּעֹשֶׁק וְנָלוֹז (Yeshayahu 30:12), you trusted in oppression and in what is crooked, which he explains as in a crooked thing, that is, in perverted judgment, in the way of וְהָעִיר מָֽלְאָה מֻטֶּה (Yechezkel 9:9), the city is full of perversion. Rabbi Yonah explained the וְנָלוֹז of that pasuk as a noun. And וּנְלוֹזִים בְּמַעְגְּלוֹתָֽם (Mishlei 2:15), crooked in their paths.
The noun from the root לָזָה
From this sense, he says, is the noun from the root לָזָה: וּלְזוּת שְׂפָתַיִם הַרְחֵק מִמֶּֽךָּ (Mishlei 4:24), put crookedness of lips far from you.
The לוּז, and whether it is the almond
וְלוּז וְעַרְמוֹן (Bereishis 30:37), and luz and armon: the לוּז is what the vernacular calls avellanier. Rav Saadiah Gaon explained לוז as שְׁקֵדִים, almonds, because almonds are called so in the language of Yishmael; and so Targum Yerushalmi renders שְׁקֵדִֽים (Bamidbar 17:23), almonds, as לוזים, the plural of לוז.
אַל־יָלֻזוּ מֵעֵינֶיךָ נְצֹר תֻּשִׁיָּה (משלי ג, כא), פירוש אל יסורו ואל ינטו מנגד עיניך. והנפעל כִּי תֽוֹעֲבַת י"י נָלוֹז (משלי ג, לב). וכן וַתִּבְטְחוּ בְּעֹשֶׁק וְנָלוֹז (ישעיה ל, יב), פירושו ובדבר נלוז, כלומר במשפט מוטה, על דרך וְהָעִיר מָֽלְאָה מֻטֶּה (יחזקאל ט, ט). ורבי יונה פירש וְנָלוֹז שם. וּנְלוֹזִים בְּמַעְגְּלוֹתָֽם (משלי ב, טו). והכבד [הִפְעִיל] אַל־יַלִּיזוּ מֵֽעֵינֶיךָ שָׁמְרֵם בְּתוֹךְ לְבָבֶֽךָ (משלי ד, כא), והדגש תמורת הנח כמו שבא גם כן וַיַּלִּינוּ (במדבר יד, לו). ומזה הענין השם משרש לָזָה, וּלְזוּת שְׂפָתַיִם הַרְחֵק מִמֶּֽךָּ (משלי ד, כד). וְלוּז וְעַרְמוֹן (בראשית ל, לז), הוא שקורין לו בלעז אווילני"יר. ורבינו סעדיה ז"ל פירוש לוז שְׁקֵדִים בעבור שנקראו כן בלשון ישמעאל. וכן בתרגום ירושלמי תרגום שְׁקֵדִֽים (במדבר יז, כג) לוזים.
ש-ק-דhis headword שׁקד
To be quick, diligent and constant at a thing. The almond, שָׁקֵד, takes its name from this sense, since its tree hastens to blossom before the other trees.
Quick and constant
שָׁוְא שָׁקַד שׁוֹמֵֽר (Tehillim 127:1), in vain the watchman is diligent; נָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל־עָרֵיהֶם (Yirmiyahu 5:6), a leopard intent upon their cities; לִשְׁקֹד עַל־דַּלְתֹתַי (Mishlei 8:34), to be constant at my doors; וְנִכְרְתוּ כָּל־ שֹׁקְדֵי אָֽוֶן (Yeshayahu 29:20), and all who are quick after iniquity will be cut off; שִׁקְדוּ וְשִׁמְרוּ (Ezra 8:29), be diligent and keep guard. Their sense is ענין המהירות וההשתדלות וההתמדה על הדבר, speed, effort, and staying constantly at the thing.
Why the almond carries the name
מַקֵּל שָׁקֵד (Yirmiyahu 1:11), an almond rod, וּשְׁקֵדִֽים (Bereishis 43:11), and almonds, and וַיִּגְמֹל שְׁקֵדִֽים (Bamidbar 17:23), and it ripened almonds, are known; and this too is taken from the first sense, because the almond tree hastens to blossom before the other trees. So it was said to the prophet, הֵיטַבְתָּ לִרְאוֹת כִּֽי־ שֹׁקֵד אֲנִי עַל־דְּבָרִי (Yirmiyahu 1:12), you have seen well, for I am quick over My word: it appears that שָׁקֵד is of the language of שוקד, one who is quick.
Cups shaped like almonds
שְׁלֹשָׁה גְבִעִים מְשֻׁקָּדִים (Shemos 25:33), three cups made almond-shaped, which he glosses as carved in the likeness of almonds.
The almond in old age
וְיָנֵאץ הַשָּׁקֵד (Koheles 12:5), the almond blossoms, he takes by way of figure for white hair, which is white like the almond's blossom.
Two other readings of that pasuk
Some read הַשָּׁקֵד there as the member of intercourse, and then וְיָנֵאץ is like וַיִנְאַץ בְּזַֽעַם־אַפּוֹ (Eichah 2:6), He spurned in the heat of His anger. Radak explains that reading as a man coming to loathe the bed out of his great weakness, as the pasuk goes on, וְתָפֵר הָֽאֲבִיּוֹנָה (Koheles 12:5), and desire fails. Chazal (Shabbos 152a) explain הַשָּׁקֵד as קליבוסתא. On that reading וְיָנֵאץ means it grows large: that bone, which is above the buttocks, grows and shows in old age as the flesh wastes and the moisture dries.
Radak’s root שׁקד
שָׁוְא שָׁקַד שׁוֹמֵֽר (תהלים קכז, א), כַּֽאֲשֶׁר שָׁקַדְתִּי עֲלֵיהֶם (ירמיה לא, כז), וַיִּשְׁקֹד י"י עַל־הָרָעָה (דניאל ט, יד), נָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל־עָרֵיהֶם (ירמיה ה, ו), לִשְׁקֹד עַל־דַּלְתֹתַי (משלי ח, לד), וְנִכְרְתוּ כָּל־שֹׁקְדֵי אָֽוֶן (ישעיה כט, כ), שִׁקְדוּ וְשִׁמְרוּ (עזרא ח, כט), ענין המהירות וההשתדלות וההתמדה על הדבר. מַקֵּל שָׁקֵד (ירמיה א, יא), בָּטְנִים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים (בראשית מג, יא), וַיִּגְמֹל שְׁקֵדִֽים (במדבר יז, כג), ידוע. וגם הוא לקוח מהענין הראשון כי עץ השקד ימהר להנץ משאר העצים. וכן אמר לנביא הֵיטַבְתָּ לִרְאוֹת כִּֽי־שֹׁקֵד אֲנִי עַל־דְּבָרִי (ירמיה א, יב), נראה כי שָׁקֵד מלשון שוקד. והפעל ממנו [פִּעֵל] שְׁלֹשָׁה גְבִעִים מְשֻׁקָּדִים (שמות כה, לג), מפותחים כדמות שקדים. ובדרך ההשאלה וְיָנֵאץ הַשָּׁקֵד (קהלת יב, ה), והוא רומז בו על השיבה שהיא לבנה כדמות נץ השקד. ויש מפרשים השקד אבר המשגל ויהיה וְיָנֵאץ על זה הפירוש כמו וַיִנְאַץ בְּזַֽעַם־אַפּוֹ (איכה ב, ו). רוצה לומר שימאס המשכב מרוב חלישתו כמו שאמר (שם) וְתָפֵר הָֽאֲבִיּוֹנָה. ורבותינו ז"ל פירשו (שבת קנב, ע"א) השקד זו קליבוסתא, ויהיה וינאץ על זה הפירוש ויתגדל שזה העצם שהוא למעלה מן העגבות יתגדל ויראה בימי הזקנה מכחישות הבשר ומיובש הלחות.
Bound or joined: that is the sense its place gives נִשְׂקַד עֹל פְּשָׁעַי (Eichah 1:14), the yoke of my transgressions is bound fast.
The whole entry
One pasuk, whose sense in its place is bound or joined. On מלמדך להועיל, who teaches you for your benefit, the midrash has (Vayikra Rabbah 29) מסקדנא לך כהדין מססא דמסקיד לתורתא, I will be joined to you as this goad is joined to the cow; that is, in Radak's words, I will be with you always to lead you, as the מלמד, the goad, cleaves always to the cow to drive her. Rabbeinu Hai brought a proof for the sense from the words of Chazal (Bava Kamma), כלבא בסקדא וגדיא בסרכא, a dog in its sekda and a kid in its sirka.
Radak’s root שׂקד
נִשְׂקַד עֹל פְּשָׁעַי (איכה א, יד), ענינו לפי מקומו נקשר או נתחבר. ובויקרא רבה (פרשה כט. דף קצט, ע"ב) אני י"י מלמדך להועיל מסקדנא לך כהדין מססא דמסקיד לתורתא, כלומר אהיה עמך תמיד להנהיגך כמו שהמלמד דבק תמיד בפרה להנהיגה. ורבינו האיי ז"ל הביא ראיה מדברי רבותינו ז"ל (בבא קמא בב, ע"א) כלבא בסקדא וגדיא בסרכא.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Almonds in the Bible," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 13 November 2021.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "All About Almonds," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 24:65, 28:19, 30:37 to 38, 37:19, 43:11; Shemos 25:33 to 34, 37:19 to 20; Bamidbar 17:23; Shoftim 1:23 to 26; Yirmiyahu 1:11 to 12 with Rashi; Yechezkel 36:35; Zecharyah 2:8; Koheles 12:5 in Targum; Bechoros 8a with Rashi and Tosafos; Yerushalmi Taanis 4:5; Bereishis Rabbah 69:8; Midrash Sechel Tov; Vayikra Rabbah 18:1; Mateh Moshe 513; Targum Onkelos, Targum Yonasan and Targum Neofiti to Bereishis 43:11 and Bamidbar 17:23; Radak and Ibn Ezra to Bereishis 30:37, citing Rabbi Saadia Gaon; Machberes Menachem; Even-Shoshan's dictionary; Dr. Gary Rendsburg; Dr. Joshua D. Klein; Solomon Löwisohn.