enemy

Distinctions

oyev (אויב)

An enemy who actively tries to harm the object of his hatred, or has at least entertained doing so. Malbim: even where the oyev makes no attempt at damage, he will not hold back his gladness should misfortune strike his victim, because he has already pictured himself causing it. Malbim on the oyev of Hashem: one who actively denies His existence and opposes His Godliness. As for a soneh of Hashem, the column adds that it would seem he does so only in his heart and not in practice.

The meforshim add that the oyev, for all his activity, still tries to hide his hatred beneath a façade of empathy. Like the soneh, he is a clandestine enemy, not an overt one.

soneh (שונא)

From sinah, hatred. Better rendered "a hater" than "an enemy": the hatred stays internal and is not expressed outwardly. This is the word of "lo sisna es achicha bilvavecha" (Vayikra 19:17), where mere hatred of a fellow Jew is forbidden whether or not it ever turns into action. His disposition is read from what he does not do: the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 3:5), disqualifying a soneh from testifying, defines him as one who has not spoken to his fellow out of enmity for three days.

The Vilna Gaon draws the line differently, by target rather than by expression: the oyev wants to injure his victim's physical existence (his body, his money), the soneh his spiritual existence, to pull him off the path of Hashem. On that reading the soneh is the more dangerous of the two, counter to what one would assume.

tzar / tzorer (צר / צורר)

The overt enemy. Where the oyev conceals his enmity, the tzar hates with such heat that he attacks openly and will spend his own reputation and his own resources to do it. Haman is called tzorer haYehudim (Esther 9:10).

Rendering guidance

• Bamidbar 10:35, kumah Hashem veyafutzu oyvecha veyanusu mesanecha mipanecha: render as two distinct classes, "let Your enemies be scattered and let those who hate You flee," not "enemies... enemies." On Malbim's reading Moshe is davening that both kinds of Hashem's enemies be vanquished, the one who fights Him in deed and the one who, it would seem, only despises Him in his heart, so that His glory should keep spreading unimpeded.
• Vayikra 19:17: soneh is a verb here, "hate," and the whole force of the lav is that no act is required. Never soften it to "be hostile to."
• Trap: English "enemy" absorbs oyev, soneh and tzar. Keep "enemy" for oyev, "hater" (or "one who hates him") for soneh, and "adversary" or "persecutor" for tzar/tzorer.
• Where a passage follows the Vilna Gaon, the gloss has to shift: oyev is then "an enemy of his body and property," soneh "an enemy of his soul." Do not mix the Gaon's division with Malbim's inside one rendering.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "A Variety of Enemies," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 2 July 2016 / 26 Sivan 5776: raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/6828-a-variety-of-enemies.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 10:35; Vayikra 19:17; Mishnah Sanhedrin 3:5; Esther 9:10; Malbim and the Vilna Gaon on oyev and soneh.