What’s in a Word?

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ark

תיבה · ארון

Bottom line

Both words are rendered ark in English, and in Scripture they do not overlap: teivah is Noach's ark and the basket of the infant Moshe, aron is the Ark of the Covenant and Yosef's coffin. Where a distinction is needed, render teivah as ark or basket (on the two proposals offered below, a floating vessel or a container for a living person) and aron as ark, chest, or coffin. The one thing not to get wrong: in Rabbinic Hebrew the two words are used almost interchangeably, so a Mishnaic teivah may well be an aron.

Distinctions

teivah (תיבה)

In Tanach the word appears in two contexts: the ark Noach built to house his family through the Mabul (Bereishis 6 to 9), and the basket in which Moshe's mother laid him on the Nile (Shemos 2:3). Two readings are proposed from that usage, and both are floated as possibilities rather than settled. By where: one may argue that a teivah is a container kept afloat on water, which an aron need not be. By what: alternatively, one may suppose that a teivah holds a living person, while an aron covers other kinds of storage, even inanimate contents. Rabbi Aharon Marcus (1843 to 1916) points out that teivah is related to bayis (house) because the two contain the same letters; the implication drawn from this is that a teivah is in some ways like a person's home, which supports the second reading.

aron (ארון)

Also two contexts in Tanach: the Aron HaBris, the gold-plated wooden box holding the Luchos and a Sefer Torah, and the coffin in which Yosef's body was placed (Bereishis 50:26). Neither floats and neither holds a living person, which is what makes the two proposals above possible in the first place.

The rabbinic usage that unsettles both readings

The Mishnah (Taanis 2:1) has the teivah carried out to the city square on a public fast day, and another Mishnah (Megillah 3:1) rules that the proceeds of a sold shul may buy only a teivah or something holier than a teivah. The commentators discuss whether that teivah is the shul's Holy Ark, which houses the Sifrei Torah, or the table on which a Sefer Torah is laid to be read, known as the bimah; either way it is neither afloat nor holding a living person, which defeats the definitions offered above. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Shekalim 6:1) goes further: the Aron HaBris was built of three teivos, two of gold and one of wood nested so that every exposed surface was gold. There a teivah is a component of an aron.

Modern Hebrew draws a clean line, though historically the distinction may not be well grounded: teivah is a storage chest, aron a closet.

Rendering guidance

  • Trap: English "ark" covers both, and in a passage that turns on the difference (a derashah pairing Noach's teivah with the Aron, say) one English word hides it. Render one of them by its other sense: "Noach's ark" beside "the Ark of the Covenant" works only if the context already separates them; otherwise give teivah as "ark" and aron as "the Aron."
  • Shemos 2:3: "basket," not "ark," unless the passage is drawing the deliberate parallel to Noach, in which case keep "ark" in both and say so.
  • Bereishis 50:26: "coffin," never "ark."
  • In a Mishnaic or Talmudic quotation, do not import the Biblical distinction. A teivah in Taanis 2:1 is a shul fixture; translate it as "the Ark" (or leave it as teivah and gloss) and note the machlokes rather than deciding it.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "A Tale of Two Arks," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 24 September 2016 / 21 Elul 5776: raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/6943-a-tale-of-two-arks.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 6 to 9 and 50:26; Shemos 2:3; Mishnah Taanis 2:1; Mishnah Megillah 3:1; Yerushalmi Shekalim 6:1; Rabbi Aharon Marcus on teivah and bayis. The article names the Megillah commentators only as "the commentators," and offers both Biblical distinctions tentatively ("we may argue," "it seems," "we may suppose") before showing that the rabbinic usage defeats them; the Rendering guidance above is this guide's own.