almond

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 article gives the second range as 37:19 to 29).

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 column adds a second explanation from the botanist Dr. Joshua D. Klein of the Volcani Center, that shaked suits the almond because it tends to stay on the tree rather than drop when ripe as 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 column traces the word's ancestor instead to the Latin amygdala, seemingly, 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, the column says, it seems luz is Aramaic and shaked Hebrew, and the two mean exactly the same thing. Dr. Gary Rensburg 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 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). The column 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), whom the column calls 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. The column notes that 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, about which the column notes 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 and nurtured only through melaveh malkah (Mateh Moshe 513), belongs to the same word, though the column sets it aside as a discussion for another time.

Rendering guidance

• Yirmiyahu 1:11 to 12: the pun is the message. "A branch of an almond tree... for I am watchful over My word to perform it," with a note that shaked and shoked are the same letters. An English that renders shoked as "diligent" in one clause and "hasten" in the other kills it.
• Trap: English "almond" would absorb luz and shaked both, which is fine for the Targum Yonasan and wrong for Targum Onkelos, who keeps them apart. In a passage that quotes Onkelos, or Rashi to Bereishis 30:38, render luz as "hazel" and say which Rishon is being followed.
• Bereishis 30:37: leave the identification open where the sefer does. "Luz rods" with a gloss beats a confident "almond rods" when Onkelos declined to translate the word at all.
• Shemos 25:33: meshukadim is "shaped like almond blossoms," not "hastened." Keep the root's second sense out of the Menorah's description.
• Halaz: "that one" or "yonder"; do not import the almond sense unless quoting Sechel Tov, and then mark it as derush.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Almonds in the Bible," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 13 November 2021 / 9 Kislev 5782: raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9436-almonds-in-the-bible.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 24:65, 28:19, 30:37 to 38, 37:19, 43:11; Shemos 25:33 to 34, 37:19 to 29; 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; Mateh Moshe 513; Targum Onkelos, Targum Yonasan and Targum Neofiti to Bereishis 43:11 and Bamidbar 17:23; Rabbi Saadia Gaon as cited by Radak and Ibn Ezra to Bereishis 30:37; Machberes Menachem. Even-Shoshan's dictionary, Dr. Gary Rensburg on the Aramaic coloring of the Lavan narrative, Dr. Joshua D. Klein of the Volcani Center on why the almond is "diligent," the Latin etymology of English "almond," and Solomon Löwisohn on Lusitania are all cited by the article and are reported here as it reports them.

Two loci to watch. Bamidbar 17:23 for Aharon's staff is the Hebrew numbering, which the article uses; in English Bibles it is Numbers 17:8. For the Menorah's meshukadim the article gives "Ex. 25:33-34, 37:19-29"; the second range overshoots, since meshukadim occurs at Shemos 37:19 to 20 and the chapter's later verses are about other work, so the entry gives 37:19 to 20 and flags the article's form.