haircut

Distinctions

giluach (גילוח)

Root ג-ל-ח, some twenty-three appearances in Tanach, thirteen of them in Chumash, mostly in the metzora and Nazir purification passages (Vayikra 14:8 and 14:9, Bamidbar 6:9, 6:18 and 6:19). Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 9:21), on the interchange of hei, ayin and ches, groups ג-ל-ה (gilui, reveal), ג-ל-ע (gala, open) and ג-ל-ח under one theme of exposing and bringing forward: to shave is to expose the skin the hair had covered. He reads ta'ar, razor, from ע-ר-ה the same way, laying bare. Rabbi David Golumb (Targumna to Vayikra 14:9) adds a second strand: ג-ל-ח is ח-ג-ל by metathesis, and ח-ג-ל a form of ע-ג-ל, "round," so giluach carries both the revealing of gilui and the circular motion (igul) of cutting the hair of the head.

(On ח-ג-ל: no word from it appears in Tanach, but Chazal speak of the widow who is chaglah, who goes around and earns herself a bad name, Yerushalmi Sotah 3:4, and the Aruch has an entry for it from his girsa of Bereishis Rabbah 18:3. The name Chaglah, one of the daughters of Tzelafchad (Bamidbar 26:33, 27:1, 36:11; Yehoshua 17:3), and the place-name Beis Chaglah (Yehoshua 15:6, 18:19, 18:21) seem to come from this root; Rabbi Avraham Abulafia derives the given name Chaglah from ח-ג-ל, which he explains as a permutation of ע-ג-ל. In medieval Hebrew and Yiddish galach came to mean a Christian priest, from the shaved head; as far as the column knows, Rashi was the first to use it so.)

gizah / gezizah (גזיזה)

Root ג-ז-ז. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim gives two different distinctions in two different works, and they are worth keeping apart:

1. Yerios Shlomo: the difference is whose hair. Giluach in Tanach is always a person's hair (Yosef before Pharaoh, Bereishis 41:14; the metzora, Vayikra 14:9; the Nazir, Bamidbar 6:18; the prohibition on shaving the beard, Vayikra 21:5), while gizah typically refers to an animal's wool (Yehudah going to shear his sheep, Bereishis 38:12; reishis hageiz given to the Kohen, Devarim 18:4). He admits that gizah can also refer to a human haircut, albeit in a borrowed sense, as at Iyov 1:20.
2. Cheshek Shlomo: the difference is how close. Giluach severs the hair as near the skin as it can go, a close shave; gizah cuts and leaves a remnant standing, stubble. He takes the core sense of the two-letter ג-ז as trimming that leaves part attached and part detached, and reads the whole family from it: geiz (Tehillim 72:6), the grass left after mowing; gozez (Bereishis 38:12, 31:19), shearing wool from sheep; gazam, a grasshopper that eats some of the produce and leaves the rest; geza, a tree with its top cut off; gazis, hewn stone, part shaved down and the rest intact.

galav (גלב)

Root ג-ל-ב, one appearance only: "take a sharp sword, a razor of a galav shall you take" (Yechezkel 5:1). Radak: a galav is a barber, and "razor of a galav" means the specially sharp blade barbers used to cut hair quickly. Radak (to Yechezkel 5:1 and in Sefer HaShorashim) also relates maglev to this root, seemingly a barber's razor; Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HaAruch) seems instead to explain the maglev the angel held at Sarah's disposal against Pharaoh (Bereishis Rabbah 41:2) as a bridle for reining a donkey.

Targum Yonasan uses forms of galav for giluach (Vayikra 19:27, Bamidbar 6:19) and even for ta'ar, razor (Bamidbar 8:7), and the Targum uses variants of it again for razors and cutting elsewhere (Yehoshua 5:2, Yirmiyahu 48:37; see also Bereishis Rabbah 31:8), all of which suggests that perhaps galav is an Aramaic word. Rashi and Mahari Kara (to Yechezkel 5:1), however, explain that it comes from Greek; the column reports that after much searching it found no Greek word that fits, but that Dr. Alexander Kohut suggests emending Rashi's wording to read Arabic instead of Greek. Dr. Chaim Tawil, for his part, holds galav is clearly a loanword from the Akkadian gallabu, barber. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 74:6) connects ג-ל-ב to ק-ל-פ, "peel" in Rabbinic Hebrew, by the interchange of gimmel with kuf and beis with peh, since a haircut lays bare what was covered much as peeling does. Rabbi David Golumb (Targumna to Bamidbar 21:29) argues that galav is a metathesized form of gvul, border, which he says is better understood in light of the possible connection between sapar and sfar below.

sapar (ספר)

Absent from Tanach, standard in the Targumim and the Mishnah, and the everyday word now (sapar, barber; tispores, haircut). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgaman) notes that Onkelos and Targum Yonasan are inconsistent, sometimes rendering giluach with sapar and sometimes leaving the Hebrew root standing, and that the Targumic maspar, razor (Bamidbar 6:5, Shoftim 13:5), is from this root; Targum Neofiti is the consistent one, always sapar. The Mishnah uses it throughout: the anshei mishmar and anshei maamad may not take a haircut during their week (Taanis 2:7), no haircut in the week of Tisha B'Av (Taanis 4:7), one may not see a Jewish king while he is being shorn (Sanhedrin 2:5), restrictions on a haircut from a non-Jew (Avodah Zarah 2:2), plus sapar as barber (Kilayim 9:3, Shevi'is 8:5, Shabbos 1:2, Pesachim 4:6, Moed Katan 3:2, Keilim 13:1 and 24:5), misperes as razor (Keilim 13:1, 16:8) and misparayim as scissors (Keilim 13:1).

Dr. Chaim Tawil sees the forebear of the term in the Neo-Babylonian sirpu/sirapu, shears or scissors, the same consonants as sapar in metathesized order; he notes that the Neo-Babylonian word was used specifically for shearing animals, while Hebrew and Aramaic sapar covers cutting human hair, animal wool and even vegetables (Tosefta Beitzah 3:19, Beitzah 34a, Keilim 3:3), and that metathesis of a root's consonants is especially prevalent where a reish is involved.

Golumb (Targumna to Shemos 9:29 and Vayikra 14:9) reconciles the Targum's inconsistency: for Yosef's haircut Onkelos writes sapar because in Mitzrayim they cut hair with misparayim, scissors, while for the metzora he leaves giluach standing, since the metzora must be shaved smooth "like a gourd" (Sotah 16a), which scissors cannot do. Golumb further reads the string ס-פ-ר as "circle" or "round," asserting that all these words are related to the Greek sphere, circle: l'saper and sippur, telling a story that gets traction as it goes around and around; sfar, a border city surrounded by its protecting wall; and sapar, the barber who cuts around the head from one ear to the other.

Rendering guidance

• Metzora and Nazir passages: "shave," never "cut his hair." Sotah 16a's "like a gourd" is the standard, and Golumb hangs Onkelos's whole word choice on it.
• Animal wool: "shear." Reishis hageiz is "the first of the shearing."
• Gizah of a person (Iyov 1:20): "cut off his hair," since Pappenheim calls this the borrowed use; keep the animal register out of a pasuk about a mourner.
• Yechezkel 5:1: "a barber's razor" (Radak). "Razor" alone loses that the word names the man.
• Trap: English "cut" absorbs giluach and gizah both. Where Pappenheim's second distinction is at issue, use "shave clean" against "trim" or "crop," so the close cut and the cut that leaves stubble stay apart.
• Trap: l'saper means both "to give a haircut" and "to tell." In a Mishnaic citation check which one the context wants before reaching for "recount."

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Haircut Time," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 1 Nissan 5782 (2022-04-02), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/haircut-time; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9642-haircut-time.md. Primary loci: Vayikra 14:8 and 14:9; Bamidbar 6:9, 6:18 and 6:19; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 9:21 and Tehillim 74:6; Bereishis 41:14; Vayikra 21:5; Bereishis 38:12 and 31:19 (in the Yerios Shlomo paragraph the article attaches Yehudah's shearing to 31:19; Yehudah's is 38:12, while 31:19 is Lavan's, and the entry gives 38:12 there); Devarim 18:4; Iyov 1:20; Tehillim 72:6; Yechezkel 5:1 with Radak, Rashi and Mahari Kara; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Bereishis Rabbah 41:2 and 18:3; Yerushalmi Sotah 3:4; Targum Yonasan to Vayikra 19:27, Bamidbar 6:19, 8:7, Yehoshua 5:2, Yirmiyahu 48:37; Bereishis Rabbah 31:8; Bamidbar 21:29, 26:33, 27:1, 36:11; Yehoshua 15:6, 17:3, 18:19, 18:21; Bamidbar 6:5; Shoftim 13:5; Mishnah Taanis 2:7 and 4:7, Sanhedrin 2:5, Avodah Zarah 2:2, Kilayim 9:3, Shevi'is 8:5, Shabbos 1:2, Pesachim 4:6, Moed Katan 3:2, Keilim 3:3, 13:1, 16:8 and 24:5; Tosefta Beitzah 3:19; Beitzah 34a; Sotah 16a; Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Golumb, Targumna; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgaman; Sefer HaAruch; Dr. Alexander Kohut and Dr. Chaim Tawil.