chair
At a glance
In short
Kisse (כסא) is throne, a seat that marks rank, which is why it is the word for Hashem's Kisse HaKavod. Kisseh (כסה) and keis (כס) are the same word in two rarer spellings, and in the shortened keis of Shemos 17:16 the missing letter is the whole point of the derashah. Kursa is simply the Aramaic of kisse, so a Targum or Gemara kursa is still throne; the sense armchair belongs to Modern Hebrew. Kathedra is the Greek word behind English chair and cathedral, and it turns up four times in the Mishnah.
Distinctions
Kisse (כסא)
The workhorse: 135 occurrences, always with a final aleph. The haftarah for Shabbos Rosh Chodesh opens: "So says Hashem: the heavens are My throne [kisse], and the earth is My footstool. Which is the house that has been built for Me? And which is the place of My resting?" (Yeshayahu 66:1).
- Pappenheim: primarily a chair with a cover or overhead canopy, the canopy itself displaying the honor of the one seated, especially a king; his family of words includes michsah, a central fund such as the one the members of a korban Pesach pool their money into (Shemos 12:4).
- Rambam (Moreh Nevuchim 1:9): a kisse implies importance and power, presumably, Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein says, because ordinary people in ancient times had no chairs but sat on whatever flat surface was at hand; the Beis HaMikdash is called the seat of Hashem's glory because prophecy issues from there.
- Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov, if Rabbi Klein understood him correctly, similarly connects kisse to ani, kaf and samech following yud and nun, so that the throne connotes the Selfhood of Hashem rather than what merely emanates from Him; he bolsters it by noting that the Aramaic kursa shares its three letters with keres, the Aramaic of beten, so that as the keres is integral to a man, kisse names the "Person" of Hashem.
Kisseh (כסה) and keis (כס)
Kisseh three times: twice at Melachim I 10:19, of Shlomo HaMelech's throne, and Iyov 26:9. Radak identifies it with kisse and gives no account of the hei; Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 81:4) uses the spelling to read keseh, the hidden festival, plainly because the moon of Rosh Hashanah is not yet visible and deeper because Hashem sits that day on His throne as King. Keis once, Shemos 17:16, in the oath of perpetual war against Amalek, where both the Divine Name and the word for throne appear shortened: while Amalek's descendants remain, Hashem's Name and throne are, so to speak, incomplete (Tanchuma Ki Seitzei §11, cited by Rashi).
Kursa (כורסא) and kathedra (קתדרא)
Kursa three times, all in the Aramaic of Daniel (5:20, 7:9). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgeman): Targum renders every Hebrew kisse as kursa; Rashi (to Daniel 7:9, Yevamos 118b, Kesubos 75a, Gittin 35a) glosses kursa as kisse. Modern Hebrew has narrowed it to an armchair or recliner, no guide to the Aramaic. English "chair" comes from the French chaiere, "seat," "throne," which first meant a bishop's throne, and that from the Latin cathedra and the Greek kathedra, which are also the etymons of "cathedral," the church where the bishop's throne stands. That Greek kathedra appears four times in Mishnah: at Kesubos 5:5, where a woman who brought four maidservants into her marriage need do no housework but may simply sit on her kathedra, and at Keilim 4:3, 22:3 and 24:2, on vessels and their susceptibility to tumah.
Where the authorities disagree
The root of kisse.
- The classical lexicographers take it as the triliteral כ-ס-א.
- Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral כ-ס, "covering," which for him also yields kisui, michaseh, kesus (clothing), kos (a covered cup), kis (a pocket), meches (a tax paid into the king's pocket), nechasim and michsah.
What the "covering" covers.
- Rabbi Avraham Abulafia: Kisse HaKavod means not something enveloped (mukaf) but something that envelopes (makif), Hashem's all-encompassing Providence.
- Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 41:40) reads it the other way: kisse is kin to kisui, katzeh and miktzoa, all about cutting off, so a throne raises a man above the rest and puts him out of reach. Hirsch gets there through the interchange of kaf with kuf, samech with tzadi, and aleph with hei and ayin.
- Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche similarly explains that the king is set apart, covered and hidden away.
Keis Yah: one word or two. An Amoraic dispute in Pesachim 117a; Minchas Shai (to Shemos 17:16) records that the later Masoretes divided the same way.
- Some early manuscripts, the Leningrad Codex and Sassoon 507, write two words, which is the accepted practice; the Aleppo Codex and Sassoon 1053 write one.
- Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) explains the missing aleph by the one-word reading.
- the Midrash keeps the absence as a statement in its own right.
On either reading the phrase means "the throne of Yah."
The reish in kursa. Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein put the question to linguists and got two answers.
- The first, which he says seems to be the case: kisse without the reish is the older form and the Aramaic with it a later development, or corruption. The comparative evidence lines up neatly, on this view: Dr. Chaim Tawil relates Hebrew kisse to the Akkadian kussu, both of them very early Semitic and neither carrying a reish, while the Arabic cognate kursiyy does carry it, Arabic being later and, as Rabbi Ernest Klein notes, having probably borrowed the word from Aramaic. The reish's insertion the experts explained as dissimilation, and Rabbi Ernest Klein explains the rhotic as inserted (by epenthesis) to stand in for a doubled consonant, here the doubled samech marked by the dagesh.
- Other linguists hold that the rhotic form kursa may instead be the more original, Hebrew having dropped the reish, in which case the dagesh in the samech marks where the reish went, and the phenomenon is assimilation.
The meaning of the word does not turn on it.
Also discussed in
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
כ-ס-א
A throne, and the heavens are called Hashem's throne. כֶּסֶא, pointed with six dots, is a time, and it is also written with a heh, כֵּסֶה.
Thrones
כִּסֵּא כָבוֹד (Yirmiyahu 17:12), a throne of glory. Shlomo sat on the throne of Hashem (Divrei HaYamim I 29:23), that is, for judgment, since judgment belongs to Hashem. הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל־ כִּסְאוֹ (Shemos 11:5), the one who sits on his throne; הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי (Yeshayahu 66:1), the heavens are My throne. The plural takes the feminine form, כִסְאוֹת לְמִשְׁפָּט כִּסְאוֹת לְבֵית דָּוִֽד (Tehillim 122:5), thrones for judgment, thrones of the house of David.
Written with a heh, and shortened
שֵׁשׁ מַֽעֲלוֹת לַכִּסֵּה (Melachim I 10:19), six steps to the throne, and וְרֹאשׁ־עָגֹל לַכִּסֵּה, and a round top to the throne, in the same pasuk, are written with a heh. In Shemos 17:16 the word stands as כֵּס, a throne, without its alef, because it is joined to the name after it and the two are one word.
Grasping the face of the throne
מְאַחֵז פְּנֵי־ כִסֵּה (Iyov 26:9): Hashem holds fast the face of the heavens, which are called a throne, that is, by His power they stand, and He spreads His cloud over them.
A time
לְיוֹם הַכֶּסֶא יָבֹא בֵיתֽוֹ (Mishlei 7:20), he will come home on the day of the כֶּסֶא, which he glosses as time; and so בַּכֵּסֶה לְיוֹם חַגֵּֽנוּ (Tehillim 81:4), at the time, for the day of our festival. The heh stands in place of an alef.
כִּסֵּא כָבוֹד (ירמיה יז, יב), וַיֵּשֶׁב שְׁלֹמֹה עַל־כִּסֵּא י"י (דברי הימים א' כט, כג), כלומר למשפט כי המשפט לאלהים הוא. הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל־כִּסְאוֹ (שמות יא, ה), הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי (ישעיה סו, א), ונכתבו בה"א שֵׁשׁ מַֽעֲלוֹת לַכִּסֵּה (מלכים א' י, יט), וְרֹאשׁ־עָגֹל לַכִּסֵּה (שם). מְאַחֵז פְּנֵי־כִסֵּה (איוב כו, ט), פירוש הקדוש ברוך הוא מאחז פני השמים הנקראים כסא כלומר כי בכחו יעמדו ויפרוס עליהם עננו. והקבוץ בלשון נקבות כִסְאוֹת לְמִשְׁפָּט כִּסְאוֹת לְבֵית דָּוִֽד (תהלים קכב, ה). ונפלה האל"ף ממילת עַל־כֵּס יָהּ (שמות יז, טז), מפני שנתחבר עם יה והיא מלה אחת הסמ"ך בשוא והענין ידוע. לְיוֹם הַכֶּסֶא יָבֹא בֵיתֽוֹ (משלי ז, כ), זמן. וכן בַּכֵּסֶה לְיוֹם חַגֵּֽנוּ (תהלים פא, ד). והה"א תמורת אל"ף. והם בשש נקודות.
כ-ר-סhe files it under כרשׂ
The belly: מִלָּא כְרֵשֹׂו מֵֽעֲדָנָי (Yirmiyahu 51:34), he filled his belly with my delicacies. The word, he says, is known from the language of Chachamim.
The whole entry
One pasuk, and the word as Chachamim use it (Chullin 3:1, 42a), where they speak of the inner כרס, the belly, being pierced, or most of the outer one torn, and much else besides.
מִלָּא כְרֵשֹׂו מֵֽעֲדָנָי (ירמיה נא, לד), ידוע בדברי רבותינו ז"ל באמרם (חולין פרק שילישי משנה א. דף מב, ע"א), הכרס הפנימית שניקבה או שנקרעה רוב החיצונה, וזולת זה הרבה.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chair of Thrones," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 22 April 2023.
Cited in the essay: Yeshayahu 66:1; Shemos 12:4, 17:16; Bereishis 41:40 with Rav Hirsch; Melachim I 10:19; Iyov 26:9; Tehillim 81:4 with Rav Hirsch; Daniel 5:20, 7:9; Pesachim 117a; Tanchuma Ki Seitzei §11 with Rashi to Shemos 17:16; Rashi to Daniel 7:9, Yevamos 118b, Kesubos 75a, Gittin 35a; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim 1:9; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgeman; Minchas Shai to Shemos 17:16; Mishnah Kesubos 5:5 and Keilim 4:3, 22:3, 24:2; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim; Rabbi Avraham Abulafia; Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche, Ohr Chadash (על ספר שמות עמ' שלג, שעא); Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov; Dr. Chaim Tawil on the Akkadian kussu; Rabbi Ernest Klein on the Arabic kursiyy and on epenthesis; the unnamed linguists the column consulted on the reish.