nature
earth (the seven names)
תבל · ארקא · חלד · חדל · חרבה · יבשה
Bottom line
Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 1, ch. 37) counts seven words for the earth: eretz, adamah, arka, charavah, yabashah, taivel, cheled. Of these, taivel is the inhabited world, the settled parts as against eretz for the whole; arka is earth, a hapax in the one Aramaic pasuk of Yirmiyahu; cheled is the transient world, the earth under time; charavah and yabashah are dry land. Never confuse taivel with tevel, abomination: same letters, different nikud, one root. And karka is not on this list at all.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| תבל | taivel | the inhabited world | the settled parts (Malbim, Metzudas Tziyon); Rashi: everywhere but Eretz Yisrael |
| ארקא | arka | earth | once only, Yirmiyahu 10:11, in Aramaic context |
| חלד | cheled | the transient world | the earth as subject to time (Radak); chadal, to cease; chaludah, rust (Rav Hirsch) |
| חרבה, יבשה | charavah, yabashah | dry land | named for absorbing the waters of the Mabul (Avos d'Rabbi Nasan) |
| קרקע | karka | floor | not "land" in Tanach at all, but the floor beneath a building or sea (Bedersi) |
Where the authorities disagree
What taivel is against eretz. Where the two stand together (Tehillim 90:2, 24:1), Metzudas Tziyon: eretz is the uninhabited parts and taivel the inhabited. Malbim: eretz is the globe entire, taivel only what is settled. Rashi (to Tehillim 24:1): eretz is Eretz Yisrael and taivel the rest of the planet. The Bottom line follows Malbim and Metzudas Tziyon, Rashi's reading being local to his pesukim.
Why taivel is so called. Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 1) gives two answers, both from the root BET-LAMED as Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads it, a thing losing its own standing by being mixed into something else or by wearing away. First, the world is metubal, spiced, with everything, the root of Mishnaic tavlin; version 2 has it spiced with Torah, so the world earns the name because Torah is mixed into its running. Second, its way is that things enter it and do not come out, the ground where bodies decay, until techiyas hameisim reverses it.
Whether arka is Hebrew or Aramaic. Rabbi Shmuel Yaffe-Ashkenazi: the word is Hebrew even though the pasuk around it is Aramaic, since the Aramaic of eretz is ara, TZADI becoming AYIN as it often does, and that form appears in the same verse. How Hebrew eretz would yield arka is unclear; the column offers only that perhaps the TZADI became a KUF because the two letters adjoin in the alef-beis. Midrash Mishlei ch. 8 instead reads arka as the land that fled from before Hashem when He came to give the Torah at Sinai. The column says plainly that he does not know what this means, and adds that the basis for the derashah seems to be the resemblance between Hebrew arka with an ALEPH and the Aramaic arka spelled with an AYIN, which means "to flee."
Distinctions
taivel (תבל) and tevel (תבל)
Same letters, different vocalization, one root. Rabbi Yom Tov Tzahalon (Mahari Tatz): tevel, abomination, is at core "mixing," either because one who does such things is himself mixed up or because he mixes up the order of nature. Taivel, the populated world, is a mixture the other way, many kinds of people, plants and animals in one space.
arka (ארקא)
Once in Tanach, at Yirmiyahu 10:11, the only pasuk in that sefer written in Aramaic: Yirmiyahu's letter to Yehoyachin and the exiles taken to Bavel, telling them what to answer Babylonian pressure to serve idols.
cheled (חלד) and chedel (חדל)
Cheled (Tehillim 49:2) and chedel (Yeshayahu 38:11) seem to be metathesized forms of one word, the column citing Ibn Ezra to Tehillim 39:6. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) makes both roots synonyms of zman, time, presumably, the column adds, because the word bears on the ephemeral, temporary nature of This World and those who live in it. Yerushalmi Shabbos 14:1: "dwellers of cheled" likens people to the weasel, chuldah, which drags food from place to place and leaves it without knowing whom it will feed, as a man leaves things behind without knowing who will enjoy them (compare Taanis 23a). Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche: CHET-LAMED, beginning, with LAMED-DALET, birth, since a man knows the day of his birth and not of his death. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 11:8, Tehillim 17:14) ties in chadal, to cease, and chaludah, rust: metal wears out, and so does a man.
charavah (חרבה) and yabashah (יבשה)
Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 2): both mean dry land, the earth being so called for absorbing the Mabul's waters (Midrash Mishlei: for absorbing Hevel's blood).
The list itself, and karka outside it
Version 2 of Avos d'Rabbi Nasan adds three further words for the land, reishis, gai and sadeh, which the standard edition found too farfetched; and Vayikra Rabbah 29:11 gives a different list of seven altogether. Rabbi Avraham Bedersi sets karka outside the whole discussion: in Biblical Hebrew it does not mean "land" but the floor underneath a building or a sea, though he admits that in Rabbinic Hebrew it came to be almost synonymous with eretz and adamah.
The four and the seasons
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel (Bereishis Rabbah 13:12) ties the first four names to the seasons: eretz to spring, when the land brings forth (ratz) its produce; taivel to summer, when the produce rots; adamah to autumn, when the ground breaks into clods; arka to winter, when the land is empty (reik).
Rendering guidance
- Trap: English "earth" and "world" take eretz, taivel, and cheled alike. Give taivel "the inhabited world" and cheled "the fleeting world" wherever a pasuk pairs one of them with eretz.
- Tehillim 24:1: "To Hashem belongs the land and its fullness, the inhabited world and those who dwell in it." Both halves as "the earth" flattens it.
- Tevel as abomination (Vayikra 18:23) is never "world"; check the nikud.
- Karka in a Gemara is "ground," but in a pasuk it is the floor of a building or of the sea. Bedersi's caution is worth keeping.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Seasoning the Land (Part 2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 27 Elul 5781 (2021-09-04): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9359-seasoning-the-land-part-2-nitzavim-rosh-hashanah.md. Primary loci cited: Avos d'Rabbi Nasan version 1 ch. 37 and version 2 ch. 43; Tehillim 17:14, 24:1, 39:6, 49:2, 90:2; Yeshayahu 38:11; Yirmiyahu 10:11; Bereishis 11:8; Bereishis Rabbah 13:12; Vayikra Rabbah 29:11 (a different list of seven); Yerushalmi Shabbos 14:1; Taanis 23a; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Midrash Mishlei ch. 8. Part one, on eretz against adamah, is land-eretz-adamah-ratzon.md.