nature
grapevine
גפן · שורק · שורקה · שדמה · שריג · סרק
Bottom line
Gefen is the plain word: grapevine. Sorek is not a second word for the same thing but a choice vine, the best stock, by most readings. Shdeimah is the disputed one: Rashi makes it a grain field, the grammarians a vine, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim simply rich, nourishing ground. Sarig is the tendril. Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino (Ohel Moed) lists gefen, sorek, and shdeimah together as "grapevines", but the sources that treat each word separately do not let them collapse: keep the quality in sorek and keep shdeimah open. The column itself closes undecided, offering that perhaps all these different explanations of sorek are somehow describing the same thing.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| גפן | gefen | grapevine | the common, unmarked word (55 times); root ג-פ-נ (Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Radak) or ג-פ, protruding (Pappenheim) |
| שורק | sorek | choice vine | the choicest stock (Targum Yonasan, Ibn Janach, Radak), seedless grapes (Ibn Ghiyyat); or tendrils/plantable shoots (Rashi) |
| שדמה | shdeimah | field (or vine) | grain field (Rashi) against vine (Ibn Janach, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Rabbeinu Bachaya); nourishing ground (Pappenheim); poor field (Ohalei Yehuda, Shoresh Yesha) |
| שריג | sarig | tendril | the twining shoot of Bereishis 40:10; seemingly from ש-ר-ג, entangling; Ibn Saruk equates sorek with it, possibly via the kuf and gimmel interchange |
Where the authorities disagree
What shdeimah means. Four views, and the choice changes the translation of Devarim 32:32 outright. Grain field: Rashi (to Devarim 32:32, Yeshayahu 16:8, Chavakuk 3:17), consistently. Grapevine, a true synonym of gefen: Rabbeinu Bachaya (to Devarim 32:32), who reads the pasuk as deliberate doubled verbiage, with Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim), Ibn Ezra and Radak (to Yeshayahu 16:8). Any nourishing ground: Pappenheim, not a vine and not Rashi's grain field either, but land juicy enough to feed what grows in it. A poor field: Ohalei Yehuda and Shoresh Yesha, a portmanteau of sadeh, field, and mah, what, seemingly invoking the shin and sin interchange, with mem interchanging with peh to link ש-ד-ם to ש-ד-פ, wind-blasted (Ibn Janach and Radak make a similar point at Yeshayahu 37:27, though not for every instance). The Bottom line keeps "field" by default, since Rashi is the plainest reading and Pappenheim also refuses the vine, and flags the synonym reading where a passage pairs shdeimah with gefen.
What sorek is. Targum Yonasan (to Yeshayahu 5:2, Yirmiyahu 2:21), Ibn Janach and Radak: the choicest grapevine, and per Ibn Ghiyyat in Radak's name one whose grapes have no pits. Rashi: shoots good for planting as trunks in their own right (Yeshayahu 5:2), or the vine's especially long tendrils (Bereishis 49:11), while at Yirmiyahu 2:21 he seems to follow the choice-vine approach, explaining sorek as shoots from a good gefen. Rabbi Shmuel ben Chofni Gaon (998 to 1034, to Bereishis 49:11), whom the column gives as an earlier explanation: the softest branches of the vineyard, which the column notes is the sense of al-sarik in Syrian Arabic (possibly the Sirac or Syrac grapes now known as Syrah or Shiraz). Ibn Saruk: simply sarig, a tendril. The column suggests that perhaps all these readings describe one thing from different angles; they are still not interchangeable in English.
The root of gefen. The early grammarians (Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Radak) hold the triliteral ג-פ-נ; Pappenheim derives it from the biliteral ג-פ, outward protrusion, with gaf (side, Mishlei 9:3), a bird's wing, guf (the body as the outward projection of the person), mageifah (a plague spreading by contact), and agaf (a flank of troops spread like wings; in Modern Hebrew a department within a larger body). Shoresh Yesha, implicitly invoking the gimmel and kaf interchange, relates ג-פ-נ to כ-פ-נ, famine, since wine makes a man hungry (Pesachim 107b to 108a). The column further notes that in Ugaritic and Canaanite mythological texts the gefen is deified as an idolatrous god named Gapnu, understood there to be a messenger of Baal.
Distinctions
gefen (גפן) and sorek (שורק)
Gefen is the default: its cognates appear 55 times in Tanach, against six for shdeimah (Devarim 32:32; Yeshayahu 37:27, 16:8; Chavakuk 3:17; Yirmiyahu 31:39; Melachim II 23:4) and three for sorek and sorekah (Bereishis 49:11, Yeshayahu 5:2, Yirmiyahu 2:21), and frequency alone marks it as the unmarked term. Sorek always carries a quality claim or names a particular part of the vine, never simply "a vine". Ibn Saruk also defines shdeimah as a sorek, a fact the column reports with a shrug; it is part of why the three look like synonyms in Ohel Moed.
shdeimah (שדמה)
See the dispute above. Pappenheim's route to it runs through the biliteral ש-ד, whose core sense he gives as abnormality: shoded (commandeering), sheid (a demon, which disrupts the natural order), shidah and shidos (Koheles 2:8, women who danced as swiftly as sheidim), and shad (the gland whose secreting of nourishment departs from what other body parts do). From that last sense he derives shod (Yeshayahu 16:4, 60:16) and leshad (Tehillim 32:4) for mother's milk, borrowed for the mann (Bamidbar 11:8); eshed (Bamidbar 21:15), where streams converge as the fluids of milk converge; and shdeimah, a field juicy enough to nourish growth.
sarig (שריג) and srak (סרק)
Sarig appears twice in Chumash, in the butler's dream of a gefen with three sarigim (Bereishis 40:10, 40:12), and once in Yoel 1:7; it seems to belong with ש-ר-ג, entangling (Iyov 40:17, Eichah 1:14). Srak in Mishnaic Hebrew is a non-fruit-bearing tree (Kilayim 6:3 and 6:5, Shevi'is 1:3, Sotah 8:3, Bava Basra 2:7, Bechoros 4:8). Describing the abundance of the Holy Land in Messianic times, Kesubos 111b expounds sorekah of Bereishis 49:11, spelled with a sin, as though it were srak with a samech, so that even trees that bear no fruit will yet bear fruit. That reading has seemingly nothing to do with grapevines, which is the question the passage raises. Maharsha (Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, 1555 to 1631): the rabbis expounded the word as though it were spelled with a samech, in an allusion to a srak tree, and he concedes that the plain sense of the pasuk they expound is about grapevines, not other trees. Alternatively Rivan there, Rashi's son-in-law (see also Shitah Mekubetzes there in Rashi's name): even grapevines that would otherwise count as barren will still yield a plentitude of grapes.
Rendering guidance
- Bereishis 49:11 pairs gefen and sorekah. Do not print "grapevine" twice. "He will tie his donkey to the vine, and his young donkey to the choice vine" keeps the escalation that Targum Yonasan and Radak hear in sorek.
- Devarim 32:32 pairs gefen and shdeimos: following Rashi, "of the fields of Amorah"; following Rabbeinu Bachaya and the grammarians, both are vines.
- Trap: English "vine" will swallow gefen, sorek, and sarig together. Reserve "vine" for gefen, "choice vine" for sorek, "tendril" for sarig. Where a passage turns on Kesubos 111b, keep sorekah and srak distinct in the English or the drashah on the spelling disappears.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Through the Grapevine," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 14 Teves 5782 (2021-12-18): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9491-through-the-grapevine.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 49:11 and 40:10 to 40:12; Devarim 32:32; Yeshayahu 5:2, 16:4, 16:8, 37:27, 60:16; Yirmiyahu 2:21, 31:39; Chavakuk 3:17 (the article prints "Hab. 13:17" once; Chavakuk has only three perakim); Melachim II 23:4; Yoel 1:7; Tehillim 32:4; Mishlei 9:3; Koheles 2:8; Bamidbar 11:8 and 21:15; Iyov 40:17; Eichah 1:14; Kilayim 6:3 and 6:5, Shevi'is 1:3, Sotah 8:3, Bava Basra 2:7, Bechoros 4:8; Pesachim 107b to 108a; Kesubos 111b with Maharsha, Rivan, and Shitah Mekubetzes; Ohel Moed, Machberes Menachem, and the Sifrei HaShorashim.