fire

Distinctions

aish (אש) and the Aramaic nur / nura

The ordinary word for fire. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgeman) observes that the Targumim usually render aish as aisha or aishata, but sometimes as nur or nura; he says outright that he does not know what governs the choice, though he notes that where the pasuk speaks of a fire that burns or roasts something, the Targumim tend to use nura. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo) holds that the letter reish itself carries "throwing," so ohr ("light") is light rays thrown from their source, ner is the object holding that source, and menorah the vessel the ner is fixed in. The article extends this to nura as well, noting that Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim does not say so himself.

ur (אור)

Spelled like ohr but pointed differently, and plainly meaning fire; the column notes that Rabbi Pappenheim does not explicitly mention it. Six times in Tanach, only in Yeshayahu and Yechezkel, and the preferred word in the Mishnah, where it is common (Challah 4:8; Shabbos 1:11, 8:7, 16:5; Yoma 6:7; Beitzah 4:4 and 4:7; Rosh Hashanah 2:3; Bava Kama 6:4 and 9:4; Sanhedrin 9:1; Avodah Zarah 5:12; Avos 2:10; Zevachim 12:6; Menachos 10:4; Chullin 3:3; Tamid 1:3; Keilim 5:11 and 29:8; Ohalos 11:7). Ur was also the name of an ancient Mesopotamian city where Avraham Avinu lived, and according to tradition the name alludes to the fiery furnace its king threw him into, from which he emerged unscathed. Malbim: ur is a smaller fire than aish.

lahav / lehavah (להב, להבה)

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo): where aish is the general term, a lahav is specifically the flame that spurts up into the air. It is attached to a larger fire and is that fire's outlet for spreading outward. This is why lahav also means the blade of a knife or sword: the blade is the part of the tool that acts on things outside itself, and the word also carries the shimmering glimmer of a flame, hence the glinting edge of metal. Ovadiah 1:18 reads accordingly: the fire within Beis Yaakov spreads outward through the flame of Beis Yosef and burns up the straw, which is Beis Eisav.

shalheves (שלהבת)

Close to lahav, but Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim distinguishes it: a shalheves is a flame attached to something tangible. He links it both to lahav and to meshulav ("mixed," Shemos 26:17, Melachim I 7:29), so a shalheves is a flame mixed with the material it is burning up.

lahat (להט)

The fast movement of fire, what English calls spreading like wildfire. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to ל-ט, "bending," the same root behind the sleight of hand of Paroh's magicians (b'lateihem, Shemos 7:11, 7:22, 8:3). Like lahav, lahat can mean either flame or blade, and both words were later borrowed for enthusiasm.

lapid (לפיד) and avukah (אבוקה)

Lapid is used when the focus is the object carrying the fire rather than the fire itself, so "torch." The column reports that some linguists creatively connect lapid to the Akkadian diparu, justifying it by taking the l-sound as interchangeable with the r-sound and then applying a metathesis that rearranges the consonants of rapid into diparu; and it notes that this is similar to an explanation in Radak (to Nachum 2:4), who reads aish pladot as an alternate way of saying lapid aish. Avukah is post-Biblical and first means a bundle of twigs for fuelling a fire; from there it came to mean any candle or torch with more than one wick lit. Halachah distinguishes the two: Havdalah calls for an avukah, while bedikas chametz and neros Chanukah call for a ner, a single wick.

ner (נר) and shraga (שרגא)

Ner is the lamp or candle; the Targumim generally render it shraga, which later became a popular Jewish name, much as the Arabic name Siraj is popular in the Arab world. Its Yiddish counterpart is Feivish. The column reports that some scholars associate Feivish, like Shraga, with light, arguing that it derives from the Greek and Latin name Phoebus, the name of the Greek and Roman god of light, and it remarks on the turn of events by which a pagan god's name was adopted as a Jewish personal name. Dr. Alexander Beider dismisses that explanation as folk etymology and argues that Feivish comes from Latin vivus, "life," which would tie it to the name Chaim rather than to Shraga.

Rendering guidance

• אש: "fire." Plain, always.
• אור (as fire): "fire," and where the contrast with aish matters, "a small fire" or "embers"; never "light," which is the other pointing of the same letters.
• להב / להבה: "flame." Where it is a weapon, "blade." If a passage plays on both senses, keep "flame" in the body and note the blade sense rather than splitting the word into two English words mid-derashah.
• שלהבת: "flame" as well, but if it stands beside lehavah render it "flame clinging to the coal" or similar; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim's point is the attachment.
• להט: "blaze," or the verb "blazed."
• לפיד: "torch." אבוקה: "torch" too, so where both appear, make avukah a "multi-wick torch" and reserve plain "torch" for lapid.
• נר: "lamp" in Tanach, "candle" in a Chanukah or Shabbos context.
• Trap: English "flame" will absorb lehavah, shalheves and lahat at once, and "fire" will absorb aish and ur. Ovadiah 1:18 sets aish and lehavah in one pasuk; render "a fire... a flame," never "a fire... a blaze," which reverses the relation by making the second sound larger than the first.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Playing with Fire," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 23 Kislev 5779 (2018-12-01): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8007-playing-with-fire-2.md. Primary loci cited: Ovadiah 1:18; Shemos 7:11, 7:22, 8:3, 26:17; Melachim I 7:29; Nachum 2:4 (Radak); the Mishnayos listed above; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgeman; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo and Yerios Shlomo; Dr. Alexander Beider on the name Feivish. The Malbim on ur is printed in the article as Yechezkel 2:5; the ur in Yechezkel stands at 5:2.