action
drawing water
דלה · שאב · דלי · דליות · דל
Bottom line
Both verbs mean draw water, and the difference is effort. Dalah is drawing from a deep well: lower the pail, haul it up, so render it draw up or draw out (Malbim). Shoev is drawing where the water is already at hand, from a spring or surface pool, so plain draw is right. If a passage turns on the labor involved, do not let one English "draw" cover both.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| דלה | dalah | draw up, draw out | deep well; requires lowering and lifting (Malbim); one root with "lift up" (Radak) |
| שאב | shoev | draw | spring or surface water; effortless (Malbim); ש-ב, water brought to rest (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
| דלי | dli | pail, bucket | the tool that does the lifting (Radak) |
| דליות | daliyot | topmost branches | as if lifted to the top of the tree (Radak); they draw water upward (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
| דל | dal | poor | emptied of fortune as a well is emptied of water (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
Where the authorities disagree
How many roots. The triliteralists (Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach, Radak) trace dalah to ד-ל-ה and treat "draw water" and "lift up" as one meaning, since drawing water simply is lifting it; dal they assign to a separate root, ד-ל-ל. Menachem Ibn Saruk works from the biliteral ד-ל and files three separate derivatives under it: dalah (draw water), dalah (lift up), and dal (poor). He leaves daliyot unaccounted for. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim keeps the biliteral ד-ל but makes "draw water from a well" the primary sense and everything else borrowed from it, and he does bring daliyot and the Rabbinic dildul (dangling) under it.
Whether dal belongs here at all. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi (Hoil Moshe) implicitly disagrees with Menachem's classing dal under ד-ל, holding instead that dal derives from zol, "cheap," by the well-established interchange of zayin and dalet.
What the core sense is. The column also reports Wilhelm Gesenius, saying his contribution bears mention because it makes sense: that the core meaning of ד-ל is "hanging, swinging." On that reading delet is the leaf of a door, the flapping apparatus that opens and closes a doorway; daliyot are branches that hang off a tree loosely enough to move, as is dildul; a dal is a feeble man whose wealth is not well grounded but figuratively hangs and may swing from one situation to another; and dalah fits because drawing water from a well typically means hanging a d'li on a rope and lowering it in.
The Bottom line follows Malbim on the practical question, which Shadal (to Bereishis 24:13) explains similarly; the root debates change the etymology, not the rendering.
Distinctions
dalah (דלה)
Root ד-ל-ה, or biliteral ד-ל. Malbim: dalah is drawing from a deep well, an act that costs effort, lowering the pail and raising it laden. The same verb serves for lifting generally: "aromimcha Hashem ki dilisani," "I will exalt You, Hashem, for You have lifted me up" (Tehillim 30:2). Hence d'li, the pail (Bamidbar 24:7, Yeshayahu 40:15), and daliyot, the branches at a tree's top, eight times in Tanach (Yirmiyahu 11:16; Yechezkel 17:6-7, 17:23, 19:11, 31:7, 31:9, 31:12). Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 6:10, 30:32) brings delet, a door, into the same family: the door gathers everyone in the house into one place, as the d'li gathers water into one vessel.
Two asides the column raises around dal and the name Dalia. On dal, he suggests that perhaps Menachem too would allow a thematic tie between his three derivatives: dal may relate to "lifting up" as its polar opposite, the pauper having been brought as low as possible, in the manner of a word carrying a thing and its opposite; or, more hopefully, dal may name one who has hit bottom, so that the only thing that can come next is being lifted up. On the name: the singular dalia never appears in Tanach but is likely the basis of the feminine name Dalia, which the column notes may also owe something to Arabic, Dalia being an Arabic name as well. Some authorities hold one should avoid the name because of its association with the negative dal, though on the readings just given that negative sense is not so clear-cut. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky asserts that Dalia is not a traditional name among Ashkenazim and does not recommend giving it unless one's family already has a specific custom to use it.
The column adds a thought of his own about the mirror root ל-ד, "birth," which gives yalad, toldos, valad and yeled: ל-ד and ד-ל look to him like exact opposites, since drawing water applies an outside force pulling the water out of where it was, while birth is an inside force pushing the child out, and the contrast shows in the order of the consonants themselves.
shoev (שאב)
Root ש-א-ב, on which Menachem, Ibn Janach and Radak agree; it appears nineteen times in Tanach, and consistently in the account of Rivkah drawing for Eliezer and his camels (Bereishis 24:11-45). It is the word behind the Simchas Beis HaShoeivah celebrations in the Beis HaMikdash, which attended the drawing of the water for the Sukkos Water Libation. In the language of Chazal a magnetized stone is an even shoeves, literally a stone that draws (Sotah 47a; Sanhedrin 107b; Avodah Zarah 44a), and in Modern Hebrew a vacuum cleaner is a sha'avak, a portmanteau of shoev, draws, and avak, dust. Malbim: shoev is drawing into a bucket without any effort, most commonly from a spring or waterhole, where the water is at the surface and needs no lowering and lifting; Shadal (to Bereishis 24:13) explains similarly. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim treats the aleph as non-radical and reaches the biliteral ש-ב, "return," the root of hashavah (returning a lost object), lehashiv (to answer), yeshivah (dwelling), and Shabbos (returning to rest). On his reading, shoev is bringing moving water to a halt in a vessel, which fits a spring, whose waters were flowing until then, better than a well, whose waters were already still.
Rendering guidance
- Yisro's daughters and Moshe at the well (Shemos 2:16-19) use dalah: "drew up" water, with the labor in view. That is the wording the Shemini Atzeres request for rain quotes back, dalah dalah lanu.
- Yeshayahu 12:3, "u'shavtem mayim b'sasson mimaayanei hayeshuah," uses shoev precisely because the source is a spring (maayan). Render simply "draw."
- Mishlei 20:5: counsel in a man's heart is deep water and the man of understanding yidlenah, "draws it out," the effortful verb, matching the depth.
- Rivkah at the well (Bereishis 24:11-45) is shoev throughout even though it is a well, because the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 60:5) says the water rose to meet her. The easy verb records the miracle.
- Trap: English "draw" absorbs both, and also moshech (pull) and mashui (drawn out, as in Moshe's name), which belong to a separate cluster. Where a passage sets the two against each other, mark dalah with "draw up" or "haul up" and keep bare "draw" for shoev.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shemos: Drawing Water," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 21 Teves 5783 (2023-01-14): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/shemos-drawing-water; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10786-shemos-drawing-water.md. Primary loci: Shemos 2:16-19; Tehillim 30:2; Bamidbar 24:7; Yeshayahu 40:15 and 12:3; Yirmiyahu 11:16; Yechezkel 17:6-7, 17:23, 19:11, 31:7, 31:9, 31:12; Mishlei 20:5; Bereishis 24:11-45 and Shadal to 24:13; Bereishis Rabbah 60:5; Sotah 47a, Sanhedrin 107b and Avodah Zarah 44a (even shoeves, the magnet). Wilhelm Gesenius on ד-ל as "hanging, swinging" is reported above as the column reports it.