armed

Distinctions

chamush (חמוש)

Once in Chumash (Shemos 13:18) and three times after: the men of Gad and Reuven expected to lead the conquest (Yehoshua 1:14) and doing so (Yehoshua 4:12), and Gidon's war with Midyan (Shoftim 7:11). Ramban reads the peshat at Shemos 13:18 as armed, since Yisrael feared attack by the Pelishtim or others on the way. The Mechilta and Rashi read chamushim from chamesh, that only one in five (or one in fifty, or one in five hundred) left Mitzrayim. (In Modern Hebrew the association with armaments went on developing, so that tachmoshes is ammunition.)

Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon and Radak take the root as ח-מ-ש, which also yields chamesh, chomesh, chamishah, chamishim. The noun chomesh, typically translated "lower abdomen," occurs four times, all in Shmuel (Shmuel II 2:23, 3:27, 4:6, 20:10), of men killed by a stab there; Sanhedrin 49a places it by the fifth rib, where the gallbladder and liver hang, so that a blow there kills. Ibn Janach, Rabbi Yehudah Ibn Balaam, Ibn Parchon, Ibn Ezra and Radak derive the adjective from that noun: an armed man wears his weapon girded at the chomesh. Ibn Saruk derives it the other way, the noun from the adjective.

The Yerushalmi (Shabbos 6:4) ties it to chamesh instead: the Mishnah there lists five weapons a man might bear into a public domain on Shabbos, a sword, a bow, a shield, a club and a spear, and chamushim means Yisrael left armed with those five. (The standard editions read "fifteen"; the reading "five" is preferred by Korban HaEidah there, Torah Temimah to Shemos 13:18, and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, and appears to stand in Mechilta d'Rashbi and the Yemenite Midrash HaBeiur; see also Baal HaTurim there.)

The column gives several further routes to the etymology, all of them offered as conjecture. Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein conjectures that chamush relates to five in the sense of a military formation divided in five parts, van, body, rear and two flanks. The columnist adds his own suggestion: the most basic weapon a man has is his own fist, which has five fingers, so a word for one bearing a weapon might well be tied to five. The German philologist Wilhelm Gesenius (1786 to 1842) sees Hebrew chamush as related to the Arabic hamas, to be eager or manly in battle, since a Hebrew shin often becomes a sin or samech sound in Arabic. As an aside the column notes David Curwin at the Balashon Blog (19 October 2023), who clarifies that the name of the Arab terror organization Hamas is technically an acronym for the Arabic term for "The Islamic Resistance Movement," but was almost certainly influenced by the Arabic hamas as well.

Targum renders chamush in all four places by a cognate of zariz (encourage, arouse, strengthen, embolden), which is to say that armed men are prepared and ready for a fight at a moment's notice. The related verb chimesh (Bereishis 41:34, where Yosef advises Pharaoh) is read two ways: Targum Onkelos, Rashi and Ibn Parchon by zariz, that Pharaoh should spur his subjects to store; Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Daas Zekeinim, Radak and others by chamesh, that he impose a fifth as tax (also implied in Ibn Saruk's Machberes Menachem). Ibn Janach reads it as a third thing, related to the Arabic chamus, hidden, a cognate of the Hebrew kamus.

chalutz (חלוץ)

Seventeen occurrences in the military sense, mostly Bamidbar (31:5, 32:21, 32:27, 32:29-30, 32:32) and Yehoshua (6:7, 6:9, 6:13), also Divrei HaYamim (I 12:24-25; II 17:18, 20:21, 28:14) and Yeshayahu 15:4. Moshe stipulated with Gad and Reuven that their soldiers go chalutzim (Bamidbar 32:30, 32:32; Devarim 3:18). Rashi (to Bamidbar 21:3) simply defines chalutzim as mezuyanim.

The root ח-ל-צ yields removing something from its place, slipping off a garment, rescuing from danger, and chalatzim, the thighs, loins or hips; it also gives the given name Cheletz, one of David's warriors (Shmuel II 23:26; Divrei HaYamim I 11:27, 27:10) and another man of that name (Divrei HaYamim I 2:39). As with chamush, Ibn Balaam, Ibn Ezra (to Bamidbar 31:3) and Ibn Parchon derive the adjective from the body part: weapons are fastened at the loins. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) accepts that and adds the removal sense: fighting men are figuratively removed from the rest of the nation by being designated as soldiers. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim narrows it: chalutzim are the units extracted from the formation to serve at the front, ahead of the army. The columnist proposes a further possibility of his own, that chalutzim are those who have drawn their weapon from its holder or sheath, or are ready to do so at a moment's notice, while noting that he has found no philologist who says so explicitly. Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim) derives it from shedding a garment, seemingly because men ready for battle shed some of their civilian clothing. The Targumim again often render it by zariz. In the Torah journal Aspaklaria, Rabbi Elimelech Bleiberg and Rabbi Itamar Habshush debated whether the Modern Hebrew chalutz, a pioneer, grows out of that Targumic tie between chalutz and zariz, or is a Modern Hebrew coinage.

The difference between chamush and chalutz

Malbim (to Yehoshua 4:12) notes the overlap and separates them: chamushim are soldiers arrayed in formations of fifty, hence the tie to chamesh, while chalutzim are men slipped off and separated from the rest of the nation. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi (Otzar Nirdafim 22) accepts Malbim on chalutzim but explains chamushim by the grammarians' route, men armed at the chomesh. On that second view both words are named for a body part and differ only in which one.

mezuyan (מזוין)

Not in Tanach and not in the Mishnah, but common in Gemara: listim mezuyanin, armed robbers (Kiddushin 11a; Bava Kamma 57a-b, 80a, 114a; Bava Metzia 22a, 29b, 43a, 58a, 93b, 95a; Bava Basra 92b; Temurah 15b; Yerushalmi Shekalim 2:1, Shevuos 8:1). It comes from the Aramaic noun zayin, a weapon, which is Targum's standard rendering of Hebrew neshek and comparable terms; the column adds that the letter zayin itself orthographically resembles a weapon, perhaps a spear. The ordinary Gemara term is klei zayin (Eruvin 45a, Nazir 59a, Sanhedrin 82a, Makkos 10a, Avodah Zarah 15b-16a, 25b; Yerushalmi Peah 1:1, Pesachim 4:3, Avodah Zarah 1:6, 2:1). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi) glosses zayin by German waffen (a cognate of English weapon) and Latin arma (a cognate of English arms). Avos d'Rabbi Nosson 29 uses mezuyan and "has a zayin in his hand" interchangeably: one who has midrash without halachah is a strong man unarmed, halachah without midrash a weak man armed, and both together an armed warrior. Yalkut Shimoni to Devarim 534, having said that a bachelor should see to it that he marries, gives a parable for a wife's protectiveness: do not settle without a wife, rather make a holder for your zayin. (In Modern Hebrew slang zayin took on a rude sense, which scholars like David Assaf and Yisrael Bartel see as a bowdlerized form of the Hebrew zanav, tail, used insultingly.)

The biblical cousin is azeinecha, a weapon (Devarim 23:14). Ibn Saruk takes the root as א-ז-ן; Radak holds the initial alef is not radical and the root is ז-ו-ן, which brings azen very close to zayin; Ibn Janach goes both ways. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces both to the biliteral ז-ן, provision and the meeting of needs: a weapon is what equips a fighter to withstand an assault. (Sefer HaTishbi also cites some who explain susim meyuzanim at Yirmiyahu 5:8 as armed horses.)

vayarek (ויירק)

Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino (Ohel Moed) lists a fourth term beside chalutz and chamush: vayarek, Avraham mustering his three hundred eighteen men to rescue Lot (Bereishis 14:14). Targum Onkelos renders it by zariz, exactly as it does the other two. It is a verb where they are adjectives, but it belongs to the group. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral ר-ק, emptying: drawing a sword empties its sheath, and readiness to do so is a fighter's edge.

Vayikra Rabbah 25:4 gives the counterweight: Avraham's victories came "not through a zayin and not through a shield (magen), but through tefillah and supplication." The column closes on the observation that Tehillim 91, said against every sort of danger and especially for soldiers at war, contains no letter zayin, an allusion to the idea that one who can draw on the power of tefillah has no need of physical weapons.

Rendering guidance

• Shemos 13:18: render "armed" with Ramban and the peshat, and footnote the Mechilta's "one in five." Do not try to carry both in the English; a hedge like "arrayed in fifties" satisfies neither reading.
• Trap: English "armed" absorbs all three, and "arms" absorbs zayin, neshek and klei zayin. Where the words stand together (the Midrashim equating chamushim with chalutzim and with mezuyanim), that flattening is the point and is fine; where a source distinguishes them (Malbim to Yehoshua 4:12), give chalutzim "the vanguard" or "the men drawn out" and keep "armed" for chamushim.
• Chalutzim of Bamidbar 32 is "as a vanguard" or "in the lead, armed," not "pioneers"; whether the modern sense grows out of the biblical one is itself disputed (the Aspaklaria exchange above), so it does not belong in a translation of the pasuk.
• Chomesh in Shmuel is the "lower abdomen" or "the fifth rib," with Sanhedrin 49a; do not render it "belly," which loses the anatomical precision the Gemara is supplying.
• Bereishis 41:34, v'chimesh: pick one, "he shall take a fifth" (Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak) or "he shall organize" (Onkelos, Rashi), and name the other in a note. The two readings are not compatible in one English clause.
• Zayin stays transliterated where the source is playing on the letter-name (the Avos d'Rabbi Nosson passage, the absence of zayin from Tehillim 91); elsewhere it is "weapon."

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Bishalach: Armed and Ready," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 17 Shevat 5784 (2024-01-27): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11613-bishalach-armed-and-ready.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 13:18 with Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael, Rashi, Ramban, Torah Temimah and Baal HaTurim; Shemos Rabbah 20:19; Bamidbar Rabbah 13:20; Yehoshua 1:14, 4:12 with Malbim, 6:7, 6:9, 6:13; Shoftim 7:11; Shmuel II 2:23, 3:27, 4:6, 20:10 with Sanhedrin 49a; Bereishis 14:14, 41:34; Bamidbar 21:3 with Rashi, 31:3 with Ibn Ezra, 31:5, 32:21-32; Devarim 3:18, 23:14; Yeshayahu 15:4; Yirmiyahu 5:8; Yerushalmi Shabbos 6:4 with Korban HaEidah and Mishnah Shabbos 6:4; Avos d'Rabbi Nosson 29; Yalkut Shimoni, Devarim 534; Vayikra Rabbah 25:4; Shmuel II 23:26 and Divrei HaYamim I 2:39, 11:27, 27:10 for the name Cheletz; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim s.v. חלץ; Ibn Janach, Sefer HaShorashim; Ibn Saruk, Machberes Menachem; Otzar Nirdafim 22; Ohel Moed; Sefer HaTishbi; the Aspaklaria exchange between Rabbi Elimelech Bleiberg and Rabbi Itamar Habshush. Three citation notes: the article prints Gen. 41:43 for v'chimesh, which is Bereishis 41:34; it prints Deut. 23:4 for azeinecha, which is Devarim 23:14; and in reporting Radak on azeinecha it prints "the initial ALEPH is radical to the root" where the sense plainly required is that the alef is not radical, since Radak's root there is ז-ו-ן. The Rendering guidance above is this guide's own; everything in the Distinctions traces to the column, including its comparative material (Gesenius on Arabic hamas, Ibn Janach on Arabic chamus, Rabbi Ernest Klein on the five-part formation, David Curwin at Balashon on the name Hamas, and David Assaf and Yisrael Bartel on the modern slang sense of zayin), and the columnist's own two conjectures (the five-fingered fist, and chalutzim as those who have drawn the weapon) are marked as his.