nature
darkness
חושך · אפילה · אפלה
Bottom line
Choshech is plain darkness, the dark of an ordinary night. Afeilah is thick darkness, something darker than choshech (Radak). Where they stand together, as in choshech afeilah at Makkas Choshech (Shemos 10:22), render the pair rather than repeat one word: "a thick darkness". The trap is writing "darkness" twice and losing the fact that the Torah escalated.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| חושך | choshech | darkness | the normal dark of night, moon and stars still shining (Malbim); spelled like chosech, "lacks" (Mecklenburg) |
| אפילה | afeilah | thick darkness | darker than choshech (Radak); no light at all in the sky (Malbim), or a covering that blocks light (Ibn Parchon, Edel) |
Where the authorities disagree
Is darkness a thing or the absence of a thing? The oldest question in the cluster, and it decides how bara choshech in Yeshayahu 45:7 is heard.
- Absence of light. Rav Saadia Gaon, Rambam, and others: darkness has no existence of its own; the word names a lack. On their side, Hashem is said to "create" darkness by causing the sun to set, the way one who puts out a candle is said to have made the room dark, or alternatively by creating the clouds that block the light. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg finds support for Rambam in the spelling: choshech and chosech, "lacks", differ only in the dot over the shin, which he says certainly alludes to darkness being just the lack of light.
- A created entity. Chizkuni, Radak, the Yaavetz, the Vilna Gaon, and others: Yeshayahu 45:7 says Hashem formed light and created darkness, and what is created is something.
- Both, by context. Ramban follows Rambam that choshech ordinarily means the lack of light, but holds that the darkness of the Ninth Plague was a real, palpable mist that not only blocked light but added darkness; the Midrash gives it the thickness of a dinar. His reason for splitting them is likely that this passage alone adds afeilah.
The Bottom line does not adjudicate the metaphysics, which does not change the English. It matters for a derashah, and Ramban's position is the one that explains why Makkas Choshech is described as it is.
What makes afeilah heavier. Malbim: a quantitative difference, choshech is night with moon and stars, afeilah is when they too give no light. Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon: afeilah means "covered", a qualitative difference. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Edel follows that line: choshech is the mere lack of light, afeilah is a tangible thing standing between the light and the eye, which for him were dark clouds that filtered the daylight so that it reached Yisrael and not the Mitzrim. Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein, possibly on Ibn Parchon's reading, takes the covering literally: cataracts grew spontaneously over the Mitzrim's eyes, barring them from seeing the light of day. Malbim's account is the safer default for translation; the covering readings are what to cite when a passage treats the darkness as an object.
Distinctions
choshech (חושך)
The unmarked word. Rashi (to Shemos 10:22): the "materializing" of the darkness means that this plague was not merely a prolonged night but darker than night. That comment already assumes that ordinary choshech is the night dark, which is what Malbim then spells out.
afeilah (אפילה)
Radak (Sefer HaShorashim): afeilah is darker than choshech. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer finds an allusion to that way of defining afeilah in the wording of a tefillah said at the Seder, where we ask to be taken from the darkness of galus to the light of the geulah: me'afeilah l'or gadol. The opposite set against afeilah is not simply light, which would be the opposite of choshech, but a great light that ushers in the coming of Mashiach. That is a useful test for the word's force in any pasuk.
Rendering guidance
- Shemos 10:21 to 23: choshech alone is "darkness"; choshech afeilah is "a thick darkness" or "a darkness of gloom", never "darkness, darkness".
- Trap: English "darkness" absorbs both. Where a passage pairs them or builds on the difference, reserve "darkness" for choshech and give afeilah an adjective: thick, utter, palpable.
- Me'afeilah l'or gadol in the Haggadah: "from thick darkness to a great light." Keeping "great" is not decoration; Wertheimer's point rests on it.
- Yeshayahu 45:7, yotzer ohr u'vorei choshech: "Who forms light and creates darkness." Do not soften "creates" to "brings about"; the machlokes above lives in that verb.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Turning off the Lights," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 8 Shevat 5777 (2017-02-04): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7123-turning-off-the-lights.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 10:21 to 23 with Rashi and Ramban; Yeshayahu 45:7; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; the Midrash giving the darkness the thickness of a dinar; the Pesach Haggadah, me'afeilah l'or gadol.