quantity
gold
זהב · פז · כתם · חרוץ · בצר
Bottom line
Zahav is the general word: gold. Paz is the purest and rarest grade, fine gold, and where it stands beside zahav in a pasuk the pair is ascending, so render "gold and fine gold," not two flat "golds." Kesem is also fine gold, named for the malleability that lets it be beaten thin. Charutz is gold as mined, dug out of the ground. Betzer is contested and should not be rendered "gold" without a note: gold, silver, a stronghold, and unrefined ore are all live readings of Iyov 22:24. The trap: English has one word where Hebrew has five, and Tehillim 19:11 and 119:127 pair two of them deliberately.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| זהב | zahav | gold | the ordinary term; seven grades in Yoma 44b-45a; borrowed for anything pristine (Ibn Janach, Radak) |
| פז | paz | fine gold | good and unadulterated (Radak), best and rarest (Wertheimer); shimmering as though dancing (Pappenheim); a gemstone for Ibn Ezra |
| כתם | kesem | fine gold | pure enough to beat paper-thin, hence conspicuous, hence also a stain (Pappenheim) |
| חרוץ | charutz | mined gold | dug from the earth (Marcus, Wertheimer); or gold that drives men to diligence (Rid) |
| בצר | betzer | gold ore | gold (Ibn Janach, Radak, Ralbag) / silver (Ibn Ezra) / a stronghold (Rashi) / crude ore (Rid) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether paz is gold at all. Nine occurrences. Most read it as gold, and Radak (to Tehillim 19:11) specifies good, unadulterated gold; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer calls it the finest and rarest gold there is. Ibn Ezra (to Tehillim 19:11 and Shir HaShirim 5:11) reads it as a precious stone. Rabbi Moshe David Valle takes it as royal jewels that happened to be made of gold. The Bottom line follows the majority.
Where paz comes from. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: the biliteral פ-ז means quick movement, which is why David dancing before the Aron is mifazez (Shmuel II 6:16); paz is gold so pure it shimmers in the sun as though dancing, and mufaz (Melachim I 10:18), meufaz (Yirmiyahu 10:9), and ufaz (Daniel 10:5) all describe that glitter. Ibn Janach and Radak separate the words: פ-ז-ז is its own root meaning strength, so mifazez is dancing with vigor and mufaz and ufaz describe gold unalloyed and therefore stronger. Radak adds a third possibility, that meufaz means "from Ufaz," which Targum identifies with Ophir; the column suggests this may be because the zayin of Ufaz interchanges with the reish of Ophir. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 49:23-24, and see his comment to Tehillim 19:11) says plainly that mifazez and paz must be connected but that he does not know how.
What betzer means (Iyov 22:24, and see 22:25, 36:19). Ibn Janach, Radak, and Ralbag: gold. Ibn Ezra: silver. Menachem, followed by Rashi: a stronghold, from the other sense of ב-צ-ר. Rabbi Yishaya of Trani: not gold itself but the crude ore from which gold is refined. The pasuk has Elifaz the Temani telling Iyov that if he repents he will have a betzer "on the ground" and Ophir, that is gold, "with the rocks of the brooks"; that this fits the Rid's reading best is ours, not the column's.
Whether charutz is gold or a gemstone. In yerakrak charutz (Tehillim 68:14) Menachem Ibn Saruk reads a gemstone; Donash Ibn Labrat and others read gold, so the phrase means greenish gold (see Tosafos to Nedarim 32a), which the column guesses may be electrum or gold alloyed with cadmium. Radak defines it as gold while recording the gemstone view.
What kesem means. Most read gold. Ibn Janach first defines it as jewels and then concludes it is more likely gold. Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra holds that in Iyov 31:24 specifically it means silver, while agreeing it is gold elsewhere.
How zahav is derived. Rabbi Aharon Marcus: from ז-ה, or perhaps from the letter zayin alone, meaning "this," because something that sparkles calls attention to itself. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim similarly: from ז-ב, "flow," because in refining, the pure gold flows away from its dross. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer: from zav, flow, in a different sense, gold found by flowing water, following Ramban on the good gold of Havilah along the Pishon (Bereishis 2:11-12), which Ramban locates in the sand and on the river's banks. A popular reading, cited by Peirush HaRokeach, Rabbi Todros Abulafia, Rabbi Binyamin HaRofeh Anav (a brother of the author of Shibbolei HaLeket), the Maharal, Rabbi Eliezer Papo and others, parses it as zeh hav, "give this," for gold as legal tender.
Distinctions
zahav (זהב)
Over four hundred occurrences, with the Aramaic dahav as its counterpart (the zayin becoming a dalet). Yoma 44b-45a lists seven kinds: plain zahav, zahav tov, zahav Ophir (Divrei HaYamim I 29:4), zahav mufaz, zahav shachut (beaten gold, Melachim I 10:16-17, Divrei HaYamim II 9:15-16), zahav sagur (fine gold, eight times in Melachim I 6 and 7, Divrei HaYamim II 4 and 9), and zahav parvayim (Divrei HaYamim II 3:6), which is either gold from Parvayim or gold the color of a cow's blood. Shemos Rabbah 35:1 gives a variant list, substituting zahav tahor and zahav mezukak for plain zahav and zahav Ophir. Tikkunei Zohar (Tikkun 70) carries a parallel tradition of seven shades in David HaMelech's hair. Ibn Janach and Radak note that zahav is borrowed for anything clean and pristine (Yirmiyahu 51:7, Zechariah 4:12).
Ophir is a person, Havilah's brother, son of Yoktan son of Ever (Bereishis 10:29, Divrei HaYamim I 1:23), and a place from which both zahav (Melachim I 9:28, 10:11, 22:49, Divrei HaYamim II 9:10) and kesem (Yeshayahu 13:12, Tehillim 45:10, Iyov 28:16) were brought. Rabbi Pinchas Eliyahu Horowitz (Sefer HaBris) identifies it with Peru, where large gold deposits are supposedly concentrated in the Andes and the rivers of the jungle; Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad takes zahav Ophir to be white gold, perhaps platinum or an alloy of gold with some other white metal, which he says is found in Russia. The column also records identifications with somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, with Atlantis, with the Philippines and even with Australia; says the accepted view among scholars is somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula or the Horn of Africa; and notes that the American archaeologist William Foxwell Albright identified Ophir with Punt in Somalia.
kesem (כתם)
Nine occurrences. The same root כ-ת-ם gives ketem, a stain (Yirmiyahu 2:22, and the Mishnah's blood stain, Niddah 8:1). Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim unites them: the monoliteral כ means striking, כ-ת means beating by repeated rubbing, and kesem is gold pure enough to be beaten very thin. Such fine gold catches the eye, so the word was borrowed for anything that stands out against a clean background, that is, a stain. Like zahav, kesem too is said to be imported from Ophir, and Dr. Chaim Tawil derives the word itself from Akkadian kutimmu and Sumerian kudim, "goldsmith." Modern Hebrew's katom, orange, comes from the same root, and tapuz, the fruit, contracts tapuach zahav, the golden apple of Mishlei 25:11. (The column adds that English orange is related to the Hebrew and Aramaic esrog/trunga, both from Old Persian narang for citrus fruits, and that per the Oxford English Dictionary the initial o- in the English form was probably influenced by the place name Orange, of the House of Orange.)
charutz (חרוץ)
Six occurrences as gold. The column notes that charutz is the standard Phoenician (Tyrian) and Akkadian word for gold, and that some scholars therefore claim Hebrew borrowed it from those languages. Against that, Rabbi Aharon Marcus: from ח-ר-צ, cutting or digging with a sharp instrument, since gold is dug out of the earth; Rabbi Wertheimer says the same. Rabbi Yishaya of Trani takes it from the word's other sense: gold is called charutz because chasing it makes a man diligent and industrious.
Color as the distinction
The Mishnah (Yoma 4:4) records that the fire pan for the ketores was of greenish gold on ordinary days and of reddish gold on Yom Kippur, so Chazal do recognize gold in distinct hues. On that basis the Israeli archaeologist Dr. Shmuel Yeivin, writing under the pen name Shebna, held that the words mark different colors of gold, the color depending on what other metals are in the alloy: zahav is yellowish, kesem reddish, charutz greenish, and paz names the shine and luster without regard to hue. He points to the Mishnah's use of kesem for a blood stain (Niddah 8:1) as a hint that kesem is reddish, and to the fact that gold alloyed with copper, red or rose gold, is indeed reddish. Radak's yerakrak charutz as greenish gold runs with him.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: "gold" absorbs all five. Where two stand in one pasuk, differentiate. Tehillim 19:11, "more desirable than gold, than much fine gold"; Tehillim 119:127, "more than gold and fine gold." (Tehillim 119:72 pairs zahav with silver rather than with paz.)
- Do not render charutz "gold" in a passage where its other sense, diligent, is being played on; the Rid reads the two senses as one word, and a derashah may turn on it.
- In Iyov 22:24 leave betzer transliterated or render it "ore," and footnote the four readings. "Gold" there quietly picks Ibn Janach over Rashi.
- Kesem in Niddah and kesem in Iyov are the same consonants doing opposite work, precious gold and a defiling stain. Never carry one rendering into the other; note the shared root only where a source makes the point.
- The compound grades (zahav sagur, zahav shachut, zahav parvayim) are best left in Hebrew with a gloss, since English has no vocabulary for them.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Where's The Gold?," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 7 Sivan 5780 (2020-05-30): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8724-wheres-the-gold.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 2:11-12, 10:29, 49:23-24; Melachim I 6 and 7, 9:28, 10:11, 10:16-18, 22:49; Divrei HaYamim I 1:23, 29:4; Divrei HaYamim II 3:6, 4, 9:10, 9:15-16; Yeshayahu 13:12; Yirmiyahu 2:22, 10:9, 51:7; Zechariah 4:12; Tehillim 19:11, 45:10, 68:14, 119:72, 119:127; Iyov 22:24-25, 28:16, 31:24, 36:19; Shir HaShirim 5:11; Shmuel II 6:16; Daniel 10:5; Mishlei 25:11; Yoma 44b-45a and Mishnah Yoma 4:4; Mishnah Niddah 8:1; Tosafos to Nedarim 32a; Shemos Rabbah 35:1; Tikkunei Zohar Tikkun 70; Sefer HaBris. The article's Akkadian and Sumerian derivation of kesem (Dr. Chaim Tawil), its Phoenician and Akkadian derivation of charutz, William Foxwell Albright's identification of Ophir, Dr. Shmuel Yeivin's color scheme for the five words, and the Oxford English Dictionary note on "orange" were previously dropped from this entry and have been restored to the body.