nature
fortune
מזל · גד · מזר
Bottom line
Mazal is a constellation in its one Biblical use and, in Chazal, the destiny or Divine influence channeled to a person or thing. Gad is fortune, and more precisely the spiritual force assigned to a particular thing (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim). Mazar is a hapax; render it constellation with Rashi, noting Ibn Ezra. The trap is "luck": mazal is never blind chance, and a translation that writes "luck" imports the very idea Chazal reject.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| מזל | mazal | constellation, destiny | the zodiac (Melachim II 23:5); from "flowing" (Ibn Janach, Radak) |
| גד | gad | fortune | the force attached to a given thing (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
| מזר | mazar | constellation | hapax at Iyov 38:32; = mazal (Rashi) or a specific star (Ibn Ezra) |
Where the authorities disagree
What mazar means (Iyov 38:32, "do you bring out the mazaros in their season"). Rabbi Saadia Gaon (there), Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Rashi, and Rabbi Moshe Kimchi: the same as mazal, reish and lamed interchanging (see Ramban to Shemos 22:15). Ibn Ezra calls that far-fetched and makes mazaros one star or group of stars, as Ramban and Ralbag also cite. Dunash Ibn Labrat takes it out of the sky entirely: a blowing wind. Rabbi Yitzchak the Blind (to Sefer Yetzirah 5) keeps it astrological but somehow different from mazal, and the column says frankly that his explanation lies beyond its level of understanding. Follow the majority, since Rashi and the lexicographers carry the field, and flag Ibn Ezra.
How mazal is derived. The anonymous commentator to Rambam's Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah: from the Aramaic azal, "going," since the sun and moon travel through them or near them; he also relates mazal to the Arabic al-manazil, a house or lunar station, and takes it to mean the same as the Arabic burj, a tower or constellation. Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein derives the Hebrew mazal from the Akkadian mazaztu or mazaltu, the static position of the stars, itself from the Akkadian nazazu, "to stand," which he also makes the ultimate etymon of mezuzah by way of the Akkadian manzazu, "doorpost." Dr. Chaim Tawil agrees with Klein only about mezuzah, and sees mazal as related instead to the Akkadian manzaltu, a clear cognate of the Arabic manazil. The classical lexicographers offer an alternative: Ibn Janach and Radak derive it from נ-ז-ל, "to flow or drip," the disappearing nun replaced by the dot in the zayin, Radak adding that the mazalos move with a steady flow. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reduces that to the biliteral ז-ל, the failure of related components to hold together, which also gives zolel (spending that flows away from a man), zol (cheap), and zulas (apart from); the mazalos are the forces that seem to regulate rainfall, and in a borrowed sense any bestowal of good.
Whether to say "mazal tov." Rabbi Eliyahu Katz, formerly Chief Rabbi of Slovakia, held that the word's ambiguity makes the greeting best avoided, lest it be taken to credit the stars with independent power. The prevailing custom is to say it, understanding it of Hashem's bestowal of good rather than of chance.
Distinctions
mazal (מזל)
Once in Tanach, in Yoshiyahu's campaign against idolatry: those burning incense "to the Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the mazalos, and to all the legions of heaven" (Melachim II 23:5). There it seems to be some astronomical phenomenon, usually understood as the twelve constellations of the zodiac (Berachos 32b), which the idolaters deified and brought korbanos to. In Chazal it also names the channel of Hashem's shefa into this world, as in "everything depends on mazal, even a sefer Torah in the heichal" (Zohar Naso 134a), which Rabbi Yosef Gikatilla (Shaarei Orah) explains of Keser, the highest sefirah, from which every energy flows down. The Tiferes Yisrael takes mazal as everything outside a person's free choice, a current from Above. Ramchal separates two senses: Hashem's governance through the astral forces, which the nations mistook for independent powers and worshipped, and His governance of circumstance by other means, with much discussion of whether Klal Yisrael is subject to the first at all. Mazal also names the guardian force behind a person (Rashi to Megillah 3a; Shabbos 53b and 61b).
gad (גד)
Twice in Tanach: Leah's cry at the birth of Zilpah's son, "ba gad," from which he is named Gad (Bereishis 30:11), which Rashi glosses mazal tov; and Yeshayahu's rebuke of "those who set a table for gad" (Yeshayahu 65:11). The Aramaic gada appears in the Gemara for the spiritual force behind a physical thing: one who worships the mountain against one who worships "the gada of the mountain" (Chullin 40a), and "the bed of the gada," a bed left unused in honor of the house's mazal (Nedarim 56a with the Ran and Sefer HeAruch). Shoresh Yesha links gad to haggadah, "telling," on the pagan notion that the stars and constellations can tell a man his future. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives it from the biliteral ג-ד, "attaching" or "connecting," which also yields agudah/egged/iggud, gid (the sinew holding the body's parts together), gedud (a squad of soldiers joined together), meged (delicacies, which the palate wants to attach itself to), and haggadah (presenting new information by integrating it into a broader narrative); on that reading Leah was acknowledging that the heavenly force charged with granting pregnancy had visited her. Rabbi Yosef Grayever of Ostrow reads gad here instead as an alternate form of meged, Leah greeting the birth as one greets the arrival of delicacies and other good things.
The column notes in a bracket that another set of words on the ג-ד string means cutting and separating, the polar opposite of attaching, and refers the reader to its author's own book God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (discussing the Canaanite deity Gad, worshipped as a god of luck) for how the contradictory senses of gad may be reconciled, and to Rav Hirsch on Bereishis 30:11. It also points to a lecture of its author's on the name Gad, the Semitic gad/gada, and the English god and good.
As an aside, the column brings gadish, a pile brimming with produce, which appears four times in Tanach (Shemos 22:5; Iyov 5:26 and 21:32; Shoftim 15:5) and many times in the Mishnah. Most lexicographers trace it to the triliteral ג-ד-ש, but Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Ohalei Yehudah) suggests that gadish is really gad ("luck," mazal) plus yesh ("there is"), an allusion to the source of overflowing abundance.
mazar (מזר)
The single occurrence is Hashem's rebuke to Iyov (38:32). Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives it from the biliteral ז-ר, "estrangement, disconnection," the root of zar (a stranger), mamzer, nazir, and nezer, and of a second family headed by zoreh, "to scatter or throw": zorer (a sneeze, which flings liquid from the nose), zohar (light, which scatters), azharah (a warning, which enlightens a man as to what is expected of him), mazor (a remedy spread on a wound), and zerem (a current). On that reading mazar belongs with zerem, the heavenly forces regulating the flow of water, which is where it meets his account of mazal as the regulator of rain. The column adds a suggestion of its own, that Dunash's "powerful wind" could be justified etymologically by tying mazar instead to zorer, a sneeze being a wind-like gust.
Rendering guidance
- מזלות in Melachim II 23:5 and Iyov 38:32 is "constellations," not "planets" and not "signs of the zodiac" unless the source says so.
- Trap: English "luck" will absorb both mazal and gad, and it carries exactly the sense of blind chance that the sources deny. Use "fortune," "destiny," or "the heavenly influence"; keep "mazal tov" transliterated as a greeting.
- Where gad and mazal appear together (Rashi glosses the first with the second at Bereishis 30:11), keep "fortune" and "mazal" distinct in English.
- Yeshayahu 65:11 is a name of an idolatrous power; capitalize it as Gad and note it, rather than rendering "luck."
- גד also means coriander seed in two pesukim, an unrelated word; check context.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayetzei: Gad Luck to You," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 2 Kislev 5783 (2022-11-26): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10730-vayetzei-gad-luck-to-you.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 30:11 with Rashi; Melachim II 23:5; Yeshayahu 65:11; Iyov 38:32 with Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and Ralbag; Berachos 32b; Chullin 40a; Nedarim 56a with the Ran; Megillah 3a and Shabbos 53b, 61b with Rashi; Zohar Naso 134a; Shaarei Orah shaar 3; Tiferes Yisrael to Kiddushin 4; Ramban to Shemos 22:15; Shemos 22:5, Iyov 5:26 and 21:32, Shoftim 15:5 (gadish); Sefer HaShorashim s.v. נזל and מזר; Cheshek Shlomo s.v. זל; Sefer HeAruch s.v. גד; Dunash's replies to Rabbi Saadia Gaon; Ohalei Yehudah. Nothing the article carries is omitted here, including the Arabic comparisons of the anonymous commentator to Rambam and the Akkadian derivations of Ernest Klein and Chaim Tawil.