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collateral
משכון · חבל · עבוט · רהן · אפותיקי
Bottom line
Mashkon is the general collateral or pledge. Chaval is the Biblical verb for distraining, seizing a pledge by force once payment is due. Avot is a pledge handed over by agreement. Rahan is security deposited up front. Apoteiki is property designated for collection on default and never surrendered. Not to be lost: chaval is taken, avot and rahan given.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| משכון | mashkon | collateral, pledge | the general term; the item "dwells" with the creditor (Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur) |
| חבל | chaval | distrain, seize as security | forcible, and after the debt falls due (Rashi; Tedeschi-Ashkenazi) |
| עבוט | avot | pledge, security | given by mutual agreement (Tedeschi-Ashkenazi); binds the borrower like an eved (Rav Hirsch) |
| רהן | rahan | deposit given up front | given before the loan and left continuously (Tosafos Yom Tov; Rav Hirsch) |
| אפותיקי | apoteiki | designated property | earmarked for collection, not surrendered (Rashi; Sefer HaAruch) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether chaval "take a pledge" is the same root as chevel "rope." Menachem Ibn Saruk, Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach, and Radak list ח-ב-ל as one root but keep its senses separate: rope, ship's captain (rav-chovel, the rope-master), region, band of people, birth pangs, injury, and taking a pledge do not explain one another. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives them all from "rope": a rope measures (a chevel of land, tachbulah, measured counsel), and what is measured is partial (chavlei, localized pains; chavalah, partial damage; a chevel of people, a sub-group only partly reflecting the larger body), so chaval is an act of injuring the debtor by a measured incursion into his property to settle a debt. The Bottom line takes the practical result the article's sources converge on, that chaval carries force: Tedeschi-Ashkenazi sets it against avot as forcible against agreed, and Rashi reaches the after-the-fact taking from the halachah. Tedeschi-Ashkenazi has the creditor pulling the debtor's property into his own domain as by a rope, and also considers that chaval may be related to chov, debt, the two standing side by side in Yechezkel 18:7; Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 22:25) offers two ways: the item is tethered to the lender, in that the borrower may no longer sell or damage it, or else the collateral, as a tangible token of the borrower's responsibility, ties the borrower to his debt as a rope ties a thing down.
What apoteiki is. Rashi (Bava Kamma 11b, Bava Basra 44b) and Sefer HaAruch read it as a portmanteau of the Aramaic a'po te'hei ka'i, "upon here shall you be," that is, a declaration to the creditor that he is to collect his debt from here, from this particular item. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur in Meturgaman cites that tradition as well but notes that the word is in fact Greek. The article follows him with Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber, whose Dictionary of Greek and Latin Legal Terms in Rabbinic Literature identifies it as the Greek ὑποθήκη (hypotheke), literally to put down or to pledge, built on the hypo- prefix, "down," familiar from hypothesis, hypothetical and the rest; the Latin hypotheca gives the English hypothec, which Merriam-Webster defines as an obligation, right or security given by contract or by operation of law to a creditor over the debtor's property without transfer of possession or title. The dispute is about origin, not meaning.
Distinctions
mashkon (משכון)
Not in Tanach; Mishnaic (Sheviis 10:2, Bava Metzia 6:7, Shevuos 6:7). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi): the root is ש-כ-נ, "dwell, settle," with a prefixed mem, since the collateral dwells in the creditor's house until redeemed; the mem was then felt as a root letter, giving lemashken, to take or designate a collateral (Peah 8:8, Kesubos 11:3, Arachin 5:6, among a dozen other Mishnayos). Modern Hebrew mashkanta, a mortgage, descends from it. (The article adds, as an aside, that the English mortgage has a morbid history of its own, from the Old French mort, dead, as in mortal and mortuary, plus gage, a pledge or security.)
chaval (חבל)
Root ח-ב-ל. The Torah's word wherever a creditor's taking is restrained: a blanket taken as pledge must be returned nightly (Shemos 22:25); a millstone or other food-preparing utensil may not be taken (Devarim 24:6), nor a widow's garment (24:17). Rashi (to Shemos 22:25): taking a pledge to pay off a debt once payment has fallen due, after the fact, as against taking one at the time of the loan itself. Verbs of chaval in this sense come fourteen times in Tanach, on Even-Shoshan's concordance.
avot (עבוט)
Root ע-ב-ט. The noun occurs four times, all in Ki Seitzei (Devarim 24:10-13), the verb five times, all in Devarim (15:6, 15:8, 24:10). Rashi (Bava Kamma 115a) glosses it mashkon. Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 22:25, Devarim 15:6, Tehillim 2:3) and Tedeschi-Ashkenazi both tie avot to eved, tes and dalet interchanging: an eved is tied down to his master's whims and stripped of his freedom, and so the borrower is bound to his lender, whom the pasuk itself calls his master (Mishlei 22:7); an avot, likewise, is an item detained by the creditor, its owner no longer free to use it. Rav Hirsch further connects avot to its homonym avos with a final tav, a thick rope used to tie things down.
Two other words seem to come from ע-ב-ט with quite different meanings: a verb in Yoel 2:7 meaning to stop, and the noun avtit in Chavakuk 2:6, possibly thick mud. The Mishnaic avit (Bava Metzia 5:7, Keilim 23:2, Taharos 10:4-5) is a container for produce.
rahan (רהן)
The Mishnah (Eduyos 8:2) uses it of a Jewish girl handed to non-Jewish creditors as security until her family could pay, the question there being whether she may afterward marry a Kohen. Tosafos Yom Tov (Rabbi Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller): a mashkon is given for a debt already owed, rahan is what a would-be borrower places with a would-be lender so that he will trust him enough to lend, which he finds implicit in the Rambam (Hilchos Maaser Sheini 3:18). Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 37:35) links it to raanan, "fresh": as freshness is continuous moisture, so rahan stays with the creditor until the debt is paid in full.
apoteiki (אפותיקי)
Mishnaic (Gittin 4:4), also apoteka'i or upoteke. A specific item the borrower sets aside, from which the creditor may collect on default (Rashi to Gittin 40b and Kesubos 54a). The asset stays with the debtor; only the right to it is pledged.
Rendering guidance
- Default: משכון = "collateral" (or "pledge" in a Mishnaic register), חבל = "distrain," עבוט = "pledge," רהן = "deposit," אפותיקי = "designated property."
- Trap: English "pledge" will absorb mashkon, avot, and rahan, and "take a pledge" will absorb chaval too. Two tests keep them apart: did the creditor take it or did the debtor hand it over (chaval against avot), and was it before the loan or after default (rahan against mashkon)?
- When chaval and avot meet in one sugya (Shemos 22:25 against Devarim 24:10-13), render chaval with a verb of seizing and avot with a noun of giving; the contrast is the halachah. And do not render apoteiki "collateral" unqualified: the creditor never holds it.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Taking Collateral," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 Elul 5783 (2023-08-26): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/taking-collateral; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11066-taking-collateral.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 22:25; Devarim 15:6, 15:8, 24:6, 24:10-13, 24:17; Yechezkel 18:7; Mishlei 22:7; Tehillim 2:3, 37:35; Yoel 2:7; Chavakuk 2:6; Mishnah Sheviis 10:2, Bava Metzia 5:7 and 6:7, Shevuos 6:7, Eduyos 8:2, Gittin 4:4, Keilim 23:2, Taharos 10:4-5, Peah 8:8, Kesubos 11:3, Arachin 5:6; Bava Kamma 11b and 115a, Bava Basra 44b, Gittin 40b, Kesubos 54a; Rambam, Hilchos Maaser Sheini 3:18; Sefer HaTishbi and Meturgaman; Tedeschi-Ashkenazi, Otzar Nirdafim. The Even-Shoshan concordance count for chaval and the Greek etymology of apoteiki (Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber's Dictionary of Greek and Latin Legal Terms in Rabbinic Literature, with the Latin and English derivatives) are reported here as the article gives them.