fleeing

Distinctions

nas (נס)

Sforno (to Bereishis 31:21 and Yonah 1:3): nas is running from an active threat, or from someone actually chasing. Malbim: the word applies where the danger is immediate or was very close at hand, and the fleeing is plainly visible, obvious terror. Malbim adds that nas can also be used of fleeing something without intelligence, extreme weather for instance, since one need only put distance between himself and it.

Malbim distinguishes nas from ratz as well: both are running, but ratz is running toward and nas is running from. Rabbi Naftali Hertz Treves (Sefer HaGur) qualifies this, pointing to at least two places where a cognate of nas means running toward rather than away (Shemos 14:27, Yirmiyahu 16:19). Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer's reading fits that qualification: boreach attends to the place a man is running from, with no interest in where he is headed, while nas attends to his seeking refuge at a particular destination, and may on that account be related to nasa with an ayin, "to travel."

Sefer HaChochmah, ascribed to Rabbi Elazar Rokeach of Worms, has a different line altogether: nisah is running away to somewhere near, bericha to somewhere far.

boreach (בורח)

Sforno: running away out of fear of a future threat, with nobody chasing. Malbim: the danger is more abstract, less tangible, not yet immediate. Two further marks in Malbim. First, one who is boreach runs clandestinely, so that even a bystander would not necessarily see that he is on the run, where one who is nas is very obviously fleeing in terror; the column's illustration is the difference between a man running from a poisonous snake and an informant hiding in witness protection. Second, one who is boreach is running from an intelligent pursuer, whether a man, an animal, or Hashem. Malbim ties the two together: fleeing something that can think requires going undercover, while fleeing a mindless danger requires only distance.

The Aramaic

Aramaic draws none of these distinctions. The root ע-ר-ק is its one word for running away, and it appears once in Tanach, at Iyov 30:3. Most of the Targumim generally render both nas and boreach with arak, though Onkelos often renders boreach as azil, simply "went."

Rendering guidance

• נס: "flee," or "fled" plainly. Bamidbar 10:35, veyanusu mesanecha mipanecha: "and let those who hate You flee before You." The pursuit is present, so the strong verb is right.
• ברח: "run away," or "escape." Yaakov leaving Lavan (Bereishis 31:21) and Yonah from before Hashem (Yonah 1:3) are both boreach, and both are quiet departures ahead of a trouble not yet arrived.
• Trap: English "flee" absorbs both. Where a passage or a meforash is turning on the difference, split them: "flee" for nas, "slip away" or "run off" for boreach, which keeps Malbim's stealth.
• Trap: do not write "fled from an unseen pursuer" for boreach. Sforno's point is that there is no pursuer at all yet, only the fear of one.
• Trap: where nas means running toward (Shemos 14:27), "flee" is wrong. Render it "ran," and note the exception rather than forcing Malbim's rule onto the pasuk.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Running Away," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 Sivan 5778 (2018-06-02): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7779-running-away.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 10:35; Bereishis 31:21; Yonah 1:3; Shemos 14:27; Yirmiyahu 16:19; Iyov 30:3; Sforno to Bereishis 31:21 and Yonah 1:3; Malbim on nas, boreach and ratz; Sefer HaChochmah ascribed to Rabbi Elazar Rokeach of Worms; Rabbi Naftali Hertz Treves, Sefer HaGur; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer; Targum Onkelos.