drinking

Distinctions

lishtos (לשתות)

Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach and Radak give ש-ת-ה; Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) gives the biliteral ש-ת. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads that biliteral as putting a thing in its proper place, gathering shasos (a foundation deliberately set beneath a structure, Tehillim 11:3), shes (the body's own foundation), shesi (the warp running the length of a weave; Rav Hirsch to Vayikra 13:48), and mashtin and shesen. In Cheishek Shlomo he applies it to drinking: liquid helps the digestive system settle food into its place and draw its full nourishment, which is why wherever Tanach juxtaposes the two verbs, drinking precedes eating. In Yerios Shlomo he puts it slightly differently: drinking restores the innards shriveled and constricted by thirst to their settled state. On that second reading he also considers that shesen may itself derive from lishtos, urine being the liquid waste that is a byproduct of drinking. On either reading lishtos names what happens inside the drinker, which is why it is never used of watering a field.

lehashkos (להשקות) and mashkeh (משקה)

Not the act of drinking but the act of providing drink, hence the hifil, and hence its range over flora as well as man and beast: "a mist rose from the ground and watered (hishkah) the face of the earth" (Bereishis 2:6).

• Rabbi Aharon Marcus: from the biliteral ש-ק, movement. So teshukah is the motivation that sets a man moving, shok is the thigh that moves the leg, shuk is the marketplace everyone strives toward, meshek gevim (Yeshayahu 33:4) is the marching of locusts in unison, shaked, diligence or the almond tree, is consistent and diligent movement, and Eliezer as Avraham's meshek (Bereishis 15:2) is the manager who keeps a household in motion. The opposite pole of the same root is sheket, the stillness of no movement at all.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: the same biliteral ש-ק, but its core is making consecutive sounds. Shokek is roaring, sound after sound like a metronome; liquids are named for the noise they make when poured from vessel to vessel. Secondarily teshukah, since desire makes the heartbeat audible and regular; then neshikah, a kiss, either as teshukah realized or for its sound; and even neshek, weaponry, since combatants closing on each other resemble lovers closing for a kiss, or for the sound the weapon makes.
• Shadal: the root ש-ו-ק means liquid first of all, and the verb lehashkos, to pour into a mouth or onto a field, is the action most bound up with liquid; from thirst, the natural desire, came teshukah for desire of any kind, and from the shok shok of pouring came the sound sense, with shokek the noise of a hungry, tired bear on the hunt, shok the thigh both moving and sounding, and shuk the busy noisy market. On meshek (Bereishis 15:2) he agrees it is the manager who directs the household's movement and logistics, notes it appears only there because it is set beside the similarly spelled Damesek, and cites the French historian Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy for the reading that meshek relates to mashkeh in the sense of a cup-bearer, which Shadal rejects on the grounds that in Tanach only kings have cup-bearers and Avraham was no king.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim's summary of the pair: lishtos is about what drinking does to the body, so it is the act itself; lehashkos is about the sound of liquid not yet drunk, so it is everything before the act, the preparing and providing.
• Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 40:23; Bamidbar 33:52) reads ש-ק-ה as quenching, filling to the maximum, and groups with it ש-כ-ח (forgetting, a mind so full there is no room left), ש-ג-ה (inadvertence, acting without proper focus), ש-ג-ע (insanity, the delusional conceptions of a crazed man), and ש-ג-ח (watching, an intense and focused looking).

hagmieini (הגמיאיני)

The servant's word at Bereishis 24:17, meaning something along the lines of "let me drink." All the early lexicographers, the biliteralist Menachem Ibn Saruk included, give the root ג-מ-א. Rashi (there) takes another approach and connects ג-מ-א to ג-מ-ע, the column adding that this is possibly via the interchange of aleph and ayin; ג-מ-ע does not appear in Tanach but does in the Mishnah (Shabbos 8:1, 14:4) and elsewhere in rabbinic literature, including the Targum to Iyov 39:30, for swallowing. Rashi's comparison rests on the Gemara (Shabbos 77a), which debates whether that Mishnaic word takes an aleph or an ayin and adduces the pasuk of hagmieini as proof for the aleph. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim instead traces it to the biliteral ג-מ, spongy or absorbent material, which gives gome, the spongy reed of marshy wetlands: the request is to drink the way a reed soaks up water.

The column offers two further possibilities of its own. First, that the term may be related to the Mishnaic guma, a pit or hole (Chullin 2:9; Parah 2:5), drinking being a pouring of things down the hole of one's mouth, on the order of the English "down the hatch." Second, a suggestion he credits to his wife, Shira Yael Klein, that the root is onomatopoeic, rendering the sound of glugging, gulping or slurping down a drink. He adds that the rabbinic lugma (a cheekful) and legimah (a sip) may well be related to hagmieini, although Rabbi Ernest Klein writes that the origin of the rabbinic ל-ג-מ is unknown and may in fact be borrowed from the Greek lygmos, "swallowing."

how the parashah uses them

Bereishis 24 runs all three through one episode: lishtos of the servant (24:14, 24:18, 24:44, 24:46) and of his camels (24:19, 24:22); lehashkos of the servant (24:18, 24:19, 24:43, 24:45) and of the camels (24:14, 24:46); and hagmieini once, in the servant's own request (24:17).

Rendering guidance

• לשתות: "to drink." להשקות: "to give to drink," "to water," "to let drink." Never "to drink" for the hifil.
• משקה: "drink" or "beverage"; where the context is a feast, "strong drink" may be right, but do not import alcohol where the Hebrew has not.
• הגמיאיני: "let me sip," or "give me a swallow" where Rashi's ג-מ-ע reading is being followed. "Let me drink" is not wrong but loses the word entirely.
• Trap: English "drink" absorbs lishtos and lehashkos both. In Bereishis 24 the two alternate within single pesukim (24:14, 24:18, 24:19, 24:46), and the point of the test is that Rivkah both drank and watered. Render "and she drank" against "and she gave the camels to drink," and never merge them.
• Second trap: תשוקה, שוק and שוק all belong to the same root as lehashkos on every one of these readings, but in ordinary prose they are desire, thigh, and market. Bring the connection out only where a source is darshening it.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chayei Sarah: Take a Drink," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 18 Cheshvan 5783 (2022-11-12), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/chayei-sarah-take-a-drink; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10709-chayei-sarah-take-a-drink.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 2:6, 15:2, 24:14-24:46, 40:23; Vayikra 13:48; Bamidbar 33:52; Yeshayahu 33:4; Tehillim 11:3; Iyov 39:30; Shabbos 8:1, 14:4, and 77a; Chullin 2:9; Parah 2:5; Machberes Menachem; Cheishek Shlomo; Yerios Shlomo. The column's citation of Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy on meshek as cup-bearer (a reading Shadal rejects) and Rabbi Ernest Klein's possible Greek lygmos behind legimah are reported above as the column reports them.