society
husband
At a glance
In short
Both mean husband, and Hoshea sets them against each other: "you will call Me ishi and you will not call Me baali any longer" (Hoshea 2:18). Whether the two differ in meaning at all is the first dispute. Radak, Abarbanel and Maharsha say they do not, and that the pasuk is only about avoiding a word that is also the name of the Canaanite idol. The rest of the authorities say they do. Their readings differ in detail, but many of them point the same way: baal is the master or owner, the one who acts and lords, while ish is the husband of a mutual bond, the two as one flesh.
Distinctions
Ish (איש)
The husband of a mutual bond. Rashi's word for it at Kesubos 71b is conjugality and marriage; Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Chaver's is one flesh; Maharal's is a united connection, with the yud and the hei that separate ish from ishah spelling the first two letters of the Sheim. What the readings share is that neither party stands over the other.
Baal (בעל)
The husband as master. The plain evidence is that the word is not reserved to marriage: the owner of an ox is the baal hashor (Shemos 21:28), so baali can say no more than that she has been acquired. Three separate derivations push the same way. Maharal and the Vilna Gaon take it from bo'el and be'ilah, the act in which the man is the active party. Rav Hirsch takes it from paal, action, on the interchange of beis and peh, so that the baal is the initiator over one subdued. And Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg finds the note again in bala, swallowing, a metathesis of the same letters. Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra) adds a fourth: baal is short for ba al, "comes upon."
Set against that, the word is also the name of the Canaanite idol, which on the first view above is the whole of what Hoshea is saying.
Where the authorities disagree
Whether the two words differ at all.
- They are synonyms, and the pasuk is about the idol. Radak, Abarbanel and Maharsha: after the exile the Jews will repent so completely that they will not use baali of Hashem at all, because they will want distance from the homonymous Baal, chief of the Canaanite pantheon, whom the prophets laboured to break them of. So they will use its synonym ishi instead, and the shift is lexical. The Yerushalmi (Avodah Zarah 3:6) that the Baal idol was shaped like the male member, and Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 23:13) that baal is kin to the Greek phallus through the interchange of beis and feh, give the avoidance a thematic edge: the Jews will not use the word even in its plain sense of husband.
- They differ, and the pasuk is about the relationship. Everyone below.
How they differ, among those who say they do. The readings converge but are not the same.
- Ownership against partnership. Rabbi Yochanan (Kesubos 71b) has the Jews relating to Hashem "like a bride in her father-in-law's home, not like a bride in her father's home." Rashi supplies each half in a different place: to the Gemara there, that ishi implies conjugality and marriage; to Hoshea, that baali implies lording and awe. Maharsha puts the two together, and Rashi's first edition, quoted in the Shittah Mekubetzes to Kesubos 71b, shows that this was Rashi's intent. So baali is bare ownership, of the sort by which the owner of an ox is the baal hashor (Shemos 21:28), and answers to the betrothed bride still in her father's house, acquired but with no reciprocity; ishi is intimate familiarity and a two-way bond, the bride already living in her husband's family's home, neither partner lording over the other. Malbim (to Hoshea 2:18) reads it much the same way.
- Covenant against informality. Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (1820 to 1892): ishi is a formal union of man and wife that expects fidelity, while baali is a pair in an informal relationship with no covenantal expectation of monogamy, which is how the idolatrous Jews of Hoshea's day understood their tie to Hashem and how they left themselves free to serve other gods beside Him.
- Acquisition against one flesh. Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Chaver (1789 to 1853) holds that even baali carries an expectation of loyalty. The difference is that baali says only that the groom has acquired the bride so that she can no longer be wed to another, while ishi says the two have joined to become one flesh, which is Adam's point in naming her ishah, "for this was taken from ish" (Bereishis 2:23).
- Union against the act. Maharal (Netzach Yisrael ch. 47): ish implies a united connection between the spouses, and the letters bear it, since the yud of ish and the hei of ishah are the first two letters of the Sheim. Baal he derives from bo'el, the man as the active party in the act, the woman passive, and that imbalance is what Hoshea's vision anticipates correcting.
- Provider against beloved. The Vilna Gaon (to Devarim 21:13): Hashem bestows His abundance for two reasons, as benevolent Master of the Universe and because He loves Yisrael as a man loves his wife. Under baal they served Him for the influx of good He bestows, which is close to the idolatrous idea of a god as a mechanical source of benefits owed no relationship; under ish they will relate to Him as the One who loves them. Elsewhere (to Hoshea 2:18) he derives baal from be'ilah and so reads it as a way of approaching marriage fixed on its sensual pleasures. See also his comments to Bereishis 2:23, Shir HaShirim 1:17, and Tikkunei Zohar, Tikkun 30.
- Initiating against sharing. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 20:3, Tehillim 28:4), on the interchange of beis and peh, makes baal kin to paal, action: an action is how a man controls a situation to reach his object, and baal is accordingly the one who initiates, lording over a subdued vassal, against the partner who only receives. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation adds that the same is hinted in bala, swallowing, whose root beis-lamed-ayin is a metathesis of baal, beis-ayin-lamed, which catches the aggressive side of a nature that would acquire possessions and people alike by swallowing them up. Rav Hirsch reads Hoshea from the other side: under baali the Jews saw themselves humbled and downtrodden before Him, and afterwards they regain their confidence and walk in His path as partners, unsubjugated, which is ishi.
- Already happened, not still coming. Rabbi Meir Emden (1717 to 1798), son of Rabbi Yaakov Emden (1698 to 1776), does not read the vision as future at all. At Sinai Hashem held the mountain over them like a barrel (Shabbos 88a), so that their acceptance was not free of duress, and that is baali, a coercive owner who forced the Torah on them. In the days of Achashverosh they repented and took the Torah on willingly, "the Jews fulfilled and accepted upon themselves" (Esther 9:27), and from then on He was their loving ish.
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
א-י-ש
A man, a word that can take in women too; said even of what is not human; of the great man, the head and master of a thing; and of a husband.
Man and woman, and the plurals
מַכֵּה אִישׁ וָמֵת (Shemos 21:12), one who strikes a man so that he dies, and אַשְׁרֵי־ אִישׁ יָרֵא אֶת־י"י (Tehillim 112:1), happy is the man who fears Hashem. איש takes in male and female alike; in איש ואשה, man and woman, it is said of the male alone, since אשה, woman, is named beside it, and so too without אשה where the sense of the pasuk shows it. The plural is אֲלֵיכֶם אִישִׁים אֶקְרָא (Mishlei 8:4), to you, O men, I call. The shin of אשה is doubled for the quiescent yud lost from איש, and in the construct it is lightened to אֵשֶׁת; sometimes אשת stands on its own, as כְּמוֹ אֵשֶׁת לֵדָֽה (Yirmiyahu 13:21), like a woman in labour. The plural of אשה is אִשֹּׁת הַזִּמָּֽה (Yechezkel 23:44), the women of lewdness, but נשים, women, belongs to the root אנש and is written there.
Anything at all is called איש
Every thing is called איש and אשה, man and woman, though it is not human: of the keruvim, וּפְנֵיהֶם אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו (Shemos 25:20), and their faces, each man toward his brother; of the curtains, אִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחֹתָהּ (Shemos 26:3), each woman to her sister; of the stars, אִישׁ לֹא נֶעְדָּֽר (Yeshayahu 40:26), not a man of them is missing; and of the beasts, אִישׁ וְאִשְׁתּוֹ (Bereishis 7:2), a man and his wife, the male and its mate.
The great man, the master of a thing
גִּדְעוֹן בֶּן־יוֹאָשׁ אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל (Shoftim 7:14), Gidon ben Yoash, a man of Israel, means the great one of Israel and its head; הֲלֽוֹא־ אִישׁ אַתָּה (Shmuel I 26:15) is, are you not a great man; י"י אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה (Shemos 15:3), Hashem is a man of war, is, He is great and the master of war; אִם־תִּמְצְאוּ אִישׁ (Yirmiyahu 5:3 in his edition), if you find a man, is a great man, a master of good deeds, and its explanation stands beside it, אִם־יֵשׁ עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט, if there is one who does justice. In גַּם־בְּנֵי אָדָם גַּם־בְּנֵי־ אִישׁ (Tehillim 49:3), both the sons of adam and the sons of ish, בני אדם is said of the multitude and בני איש of the great. וְאִישָׁהּ זָקֵֽן (Melachim II 4:14), and her man is old, is her husband. וְאִם־ אִישׁ שְׂפָתַיִם יִצְדָּֽק (Iyov 11:2), and if a man of lips be in the right, is the master of lips, the master of the tongue, who dresses his arguments in his best words.
אִשׁ, written without the yud
איש also comes without its yud, and some say the alef there stands in place of a yud, so that the word is יש, there is: אִם־ אִשׁ לְהֵמִין וּלְהַשְׂמִיל (Shmuel II 14:19), if there is any turning right or left, and עוֹד הַאִשׁ בֵּית רָשָׁע (Michah 6:10), is there still, in the house of the wicked; and so Yonasan rendered the first אִם אִית לְמִסְטֵי לְיַמִינָא, if there is turning to the right, and the second עוֹד הַאִית בֵּית רְשִׁיעָא, is there still in the house of the wicked. On this reading the heh of הַאִשׁ has a patach because it asks, as in היש, is there. Radak's father read אִשׁ as fire, as in אִשׁ אלהים, the fire of Elokim, and עוֹד as in עוֹד יְֽהַלְלוּךָ סֶּֽלָה (Tehillim 84:5), they will ever praise You, selah: that is, all the days there will be fire in the house of the wicked, on account of the treasures of wickedness, אִשׁ taking a chirik where אֵשׁ takes a tzeirei, as חִין stands beside חֵן and בִּין beside בֵן. Radak says his father explained it well, but for the patach under the heh, which makes it look like the heh of a question. Both can also be read as they sound, of a man, as the Chacham Rabbi Avraham explained it; on that reading, the honoured man of the city holds to his wickedness still after hearing the voice of the call, there being treasures of wickedness in his house. That reading too Radak calls good, save that it also pays no heed to the patach of the heh.
Each man his man
וַיַּכּוּ אִישׁ אִישׁוֹ (Melachim I 20:20), and they struck each man his man, means that each of them killed the one who came against him; אִישׁוֹ there is איש with its suffix.
אִישׁוֹן, the pupil of the eye
כְּאִישׁוֹן עֵינֽוֹ (Devarim 32:10), as the pupil of his eye, is בת עינו, the pupil, called so because the form of a man is seen in it; that is why the pasuk joins אִישׁוֹן to בת and says שָׁמְרֵנִי כְּאִישׁוֹן בַּת־עָיִן (Tehillim 17:8), guard me as the pupil of the eye. His father wrote that אִישׁוֹן is said to make small, since the form appears small in the eye, and that it is the way of the Hebrews to add letters to make a thing small, as in שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן (Vayikra 16:31), where שבת is said of the day itself from evening to evening and שבתון of the time added to it from the weekday to the holy, and הַֽאֲמִינוֹן אָחִיךְ (Shmuel II 13:20), has Aminon your brother been with you, where a letter is added to make the name small; the vernacular too, he wrote, adds letters to make a thing small. Another reason his father gave is that it is called so because it is black, as בְּאִישׁוֹן לַיְלָה וַֽאֲפֵלָֽה (Mishlei 7:9), in the blackness of night and gloom, which means in the blackness of the night; and in another measure, with the middle root letter fallen, בֶּאֱישׁוּן [ בֶּאֱשׁוּן ] חֹֽשֶׁךְ (Mishlei 20:20), in the blackness of darkness.
מַכֵּה אִישׁ וָמֵת (שמות כא, יב)ׄ אַשְׁרֵי־אִישׁ יָרֵא אֶת־י"י (תהלים קיב, א), אַֽשְֽׁרֵי־הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ (תהלים א, א), כולל זכר ונקבה איש ואשה לזכר לבדו לפי שזכר אשה לצדו, וכן בלא זכר אשה כשיורה ענין הפסוק עליו וקבוץ איש אֲלֵיכֶם אִישִׁים אֶקְרָא (משלי ח, ד), ונדגשה שי"ן אשה לחסרון יו"ד הנחה מאיש, ובסמוך הוקל אֵשֶׁת אוריה וְאֵשֶׁת מִדְוָנִים [מִדְיָנִים] (משלי כז, טו). ופעמים בא אשת במוכרת, נֵפֶל אֵשֶׁת (תהלים נח, ט), וְרָאִיתָ בַּשִּׁבְיָה אֵשֶׁת יְפַת־תֹּאַר (דברים כא, יא), כְּמוֹ אֵשֶׁת לֵדָֽה (ירמיה יג, כא), אֵשֶׁת בַּֽעֲלַת־אוֹב (שמואל א' כא, ז), הָבָה אֶת־אִשְׁתִּי (בראשית כט, כא), אֶת־אֲבִימֶלֶךְ וְאֶת־אִשְׁתּוֹ (בראשית כ, יז), הִנֵּה אִשְׁתְּךָ (בראשית יב, יט), כולם בחירק האל"ף. ובא בסגול האל"ף אֶשְׁתְּךָ כְּגֶפֶן פֹּרִיָּה (תהלים קכח, ג) והקבוץ מן אשה אִשֹּׁת הַזִּמָּֽה (יחזקאל כג, מד), אבל נשים הוא משרש אנש ושם נכתבנו. ועל הכלל מֵאָה אִישׁ (מלכים א' יח, יג), אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל (דברים כט, ט), וכל דבר יקרא איש ואשה ואף על פי שאינו אדם, כמו שנאמר בכרובים וּפְנֵיהֶם אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו (שמות כה, כ), וביריעות אִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחֹתָהּ (שמות כו, ג), ובכוכבים אִישׁ לֹא נֶעְדָּֽר (ישעיה מ, כו), ובבהמה אִישׁ וְאִשְׁתּוֹ (בראשית ז, ב). והגדול ובעל הדבר וראשו יקרא איש, כמו גִּדְעוֹן בֶּן־יוֹאָשׁ אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל (שופטים ו, יד), רוצה לומר גדול ישראל וראשו, הֲלֽוֹא־אִישׁ אַתָּה וּמִי כָמוֹךָ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל (שמואל א' כו, טו), כלומר הלא גדול אתה, י"י אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה (שמות טו, ג), כלומר גדול ובעל מלחמה, אִם־תִּמְצְאוּ אִישׁ (ירמיה ה, ג) כלומר איש גדול בעל מעשים טובים, ופירושו לפניו אִם־יֵשׁ עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט וצדקה, וכן גַּם־בְּנֵי אָדָם גַּם־בְּנֵי־אִישׁ (תהלים מט, ג), בני אדם אמר על ההמון ובני איש על הגדולים, וְאִישָׁהּ זָקֵֽן (מלאכים ב' ד, יד) בעלה, וְאִם־אִישׁ שְׂפָתַיִם יִצְדָּֽק (איוב יא, ב) בעל שפתים, כלומר בעל הלשון ומי שמתקן טעונותיו במיטב דבריו. וכבר בא איש חסר יו"ד ואומרים כי האל"ף היא תמורת יו"ד אִם־אִשׁ לְהֵמִין וּלְהַשְׂמִיל (שמואל ב' יד, יט), עוֹד הַאִשׁ בֵּית רָשָׁע (מיכה ו, י). ובעל המסרה חשב עמהם אִישׁ רֵעִים לְהִתְרוֹעֵעַ (משלי יח, כג), והוא מן ג' סבירין יש, אבל זה הוא מלא. וכן תרגם יונתן אִם־אִשׁ לְהֵמִין אִם אִית לְמִסְטֵי לְיַמִינָא, וכן עוֹד הַאִשׁ בֵּית רָשָׁע עוֹד הַאִית בֵּית רְשִׁיעָא. וה"א הַאִשׁ פתוחה כי היא לתימה כמו היש. ואדוני אבי ז"ל פירשו כמו אִשׁ אלהים ופירוש עוֹד כמו עוֹד יְֽהַלְלוּךָ סֶּֽלָה (תהלים פד, ה), רוצה לומר כל הימים תהיה הָאִשׁ בבית רשע בעבור אוצרות רשע, ויהיה אִשׁ בחירק כמו אֵשׁ בצרי כמו, חִין וְחֵן, בִּין ובֵן ויפה פירש, לולי שהה"א פתוחה שידמה שהיא לתימה, וכן נמצא במסרה שנים פתחין חד חסר וחד מלא. ויש לפרש אִם־אִשׁ לְהֵמִין וּלְהַשְׂמִיל כמשמעו, וכן עוֹד הַאִשׁ בֵּית רָשָׁע וכן פירשו החכם רבי אברהם ז"ל, כלומר האיש הנכבד בעיר עודנו מחזיק ברשעתו אחר ששמע קול הקריאה יש בביתו בבית רשע אוצרות רשע. וטוב הוא הפירוש, אלא שגם הוא לא פנה אל פתחות הה"א. וַיַּכּוּ אִישׁ אִישׁוֹ (מלכים א' כ, כ), כל אחד מהם הרג האחד הבא לנגדו, זה הוא כנוי אִישׁוֹ. כְּאִישׁוֹן עֵינֽוֹ (דברים לב, י), פירוש בת עינו, וקראה כן מפני שנראית בה צורת איש לפיכך סמך אִישׁוֹן על בת ואמר שָׁמְרֵנִי כְּאִישׁוֹן בַּת־עָיִן (תהלים יז, ח). וכתב אדני אבי ז"ל כי אמר אִישׁוֹן להקטין, לפי שהצורה נראית בעין קטנה. וכן דרך העברים להוסיף אותיות להקטין, כמו שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן (ויקרא טז, לא), שַׁבַּת אמר על יום השבת מערב ועד ערב ושַׁבָּתוֹן על התוספת שמוסיפין מחול על הקדש. וכן הַֽאֲמִינוֹן אָחִיךְ (שמואל ב' יג, כ), הוסיף בו אות להקטינו, וכן דרך לשון הלעז שמוסיפין אותיות להקטין הדבר, או קראה כן מפני שהיא שחורה, כמו בְּאִישׁוֹן לַיְלָה וַֽאֲפֵלָֽה (משלי ז' ב), שפירושו בשחרות הלילה, וכן במשקל אחר בנפול עי"ן הפועל בֶּאֱישׁוּן [בֶּאֱשׁוּן] חֹֽשֶׁךְ (משלי כ, כ).
ב-ע-ל
To take a wife, and marriage; from this, whoever is master of a thing is its בַּעַל, idols too, as masters to those who serve them. In Baal Gad, a plain.
Taking a wife
כִּֽי־יִקַּח אִישׁ אִשָּׁה וּבְעָלָהּ (Devarim 24:1), when a man takes a woman and marries her, and וּבָעַל בַּת־אֵל נֵכָֽר (Malachi 2:11), and has married the daughter of a strange god: הבעילה היא האישות, the בעילה is marriage. By way of a figure, וְאַרְצֵךְ תִּבָּעֵֽל (Yeshayahu 62:4), and your land shall be married, and וּלְאַרְצֵךְ בְּעוּלָה (Yeshayahu 62:4), and your land, Married.
Master of a thing
From this sense, whoever is master of a thing is called בעל: בַּעַל אִשָּׁה (Shemos 21:3), a woman's husband, for he is master over her; אִם־ בְּעָלָיו עִמּוֹ לֹא יְשַׁלֵּם (Shemos 22:14), if its owner is with it he shall not pay, meaning if its master is; בַּֽעֲלֵי גוֹיִם (Yeshayahu 16:8), the lords of nations; בַּעַל הַבּוֹר (Shemos 21:34), the owner of the pit; הָאִישׁ בַּעַל הַבַּיִת (Shoftim 19:23), the man, the master of the house; בֶּן־הָֽאִשָּׁה בַּֽעֲלַת הַבָּיִת (Melachim I 17:17), the son of the woman, the mistress of the house; הִנֵּה בַּעַל הַֽחֲלֹמוֹת (Bereishis 37:19), here is the master of dreams; וּבַֽעֲלֵי הַפָּֽרָשִׁים הִדְבִּקֻֽהוּ (Shmuel II 1:6), and the masters of horsemen overtook him; בַּֽעֲלֵי חִצִּֽים (Bereishis 49:23), masters of arrows; לְמוֹרַג חָרוּץ חָדָשׁ בַּעַל פִּֽיפִיּוֹת (Yeshayahu 41:15), a threshing sledge, sharp and new, master of edges. לֹא יִטַּמָּא בַּעַל בְּעַמָּיו (Vayikra 21:4) he reads as a master among his people, with a prefixed beis or lamed left out, the full form being בבעל בעמיו: he shall not become impure for a master among his people. All that are like these go the same way.
בַּֽעֲלִיל, master of the land
From this root and sense is בַּֽעֲלִיל לָאָרֶץ (Tehillim 12:7), the master of the land, on the pattern of סַגְרִיר, steady rain. He writes of it again at the root עלל.
בָּעַלְתִּי בָם in Yirmiyahu 31:32
Some explain וְאָֽנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם (Yirmiyahu 31:32), said of the new covenant that is not like the covenant made with their fathers (Yirmiyahu 31:31), as געלתי, I loathed, or as בחלתי, I abhorred. Radak holds there is no need: it means בעלתי itself, that although I was master over them and was their God, they broke My covenant. And so Targum Yonasan renders it אִתְרְעֵיתִי, I took pleasure.
His father: with a beis, contempt
His father holds that בעילה joined with a beis is always a term of contempt, and he reads כִּי אָֽנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָכֶם וְלָֽקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם אֶחָד מֵעִיר (Yirmiyahu 3:14) that way, for I loathed you, and I will take you one from a city: that is, I loathed you in time past, but now I will gather you. His father brings the Arabic too, בע"ל א"ל רגו"ל בא"ל מר"ה, meaning he loathed her and divorced her.
Idols called בַּעַל
Idols and images are called by this name, בַֽעַל ־פְּעוֹר (Devarim 4:3), Baal Peor, and אֶת־שְׁמוֹת הַבְּעָלִים (Hoshea 2:19), the names of the Baalim, because they are as a master to those who serve them.
Baal Gad, and perhaps Kiryas Baal
בַּעַל גָּד (Yehoshua 11:17) is as the Targum renders it, מֵישַׁר גָד, the plain of Gad. Kiryas Baal, קִרְיַת־ בַּעַל (Yehoshua 15:60), may be named from this, since it stood on level ground; it is a city among the cities of Yehudah. It is also called בַּֽעֲלָה (Yehoshua 15:9), Baalah, and וּבַֽעֲלִי, and Baalei, as it says, מִבַּֽעֲלֵי יְהוּדָה (Shmuel II 6:2), from Baalei Yehudah.
כִּֽי־יִקַּח אִישׁ אִשָּׁה וּבְעָלָהּ (דברים כד, א), וּבָעַל בַּת־אֵל נֵכָֽר (מלאכי ב, יא), הבעילה היא האישות. ואמר על דרך משל וְאַרְצֵךְ תִּבָּעֵֽל (ישעיה סב, ד), וּלְאַרְצֵךְ בְּעוּלָה (שם). ומזה הענין נקרא כל שהוא אדון הדבר בעל כמו בַּעַל אִשָּׁה (שמות כא, ג), שהוא אדון לה. ואמרו אִם־בְּעָלָיו עִמּוֹ לֹא יְשַׁלֵּם (שמות כב, יד), פירושו ואם אדניו, בַּֽעֲלֵי גוֹיִם (ישעיה טז, ח), אדוני גוֹים, בַּעַל הַבּוֹר (שמות כא, לד), הָאִישׁ בַּעַל הַבַּיִת (שופטים יט, כג), [ויאמרו אל] בֶּן־הָֽאִשָּׁה בַּֽעֲלַת הַבָּיִת (מלכים א' יז, יז), הִנֵּה בַּעַל הַֽחֲלֹמוֹת (בראשית לז, יט), וּבַֽעֲלֵי הַפָּֽרָשִׁים הִדְבִּקֻֽהוּ (שמואל ב' א, ו), בַּֽעֲלֵי חִצִּֽים (בראשית מט, כג), לְמוֹרַג חָרוּץ חָדָשׁ בַּעַל פִּֽיפִיּוֹת (ישעיה מא, טו), לֹא יִטַּמָּא בַּעַל בְּעַמָּיו (ויקרא כא, ד), אדון בעמיו, ונחסרה בי"ת השרות או למ"ד ומשפטו בבעל בעמיו, וכל הדומים להם על הדדך הזה. ומזה השרש והענין בַּֽעֲלִיל לָאָרֶץ (תהלים יב, ז), והוא בשקל סַגְרִיר ופירושו אדון הארץ. ועוד נכתבנו בשרש עלל. ויש מי שפירש וְאָֽנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם נְאֻם י"י (ירמיה לא, לב) אשר בפסוק הִנֵּה יָמִים בָּאִים נְאֻם־י"י וְכָֽרַתִּי אֶת־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת־בֵּית יְהוּדָה בְּרִית חֲדָשָֽׁה לֹא כַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַתִּי אֶת־אֲבוֹתָם בְּיוֹם וגו' (ירמיה לא, לא), כמו געלתי או כמו בחלתי. ואין צורך רק פירושו בעלתי ממש, רצה לומר אף על פי שאני בעלתי בם והייתי להם לאלהים המה הפרו את בריתי, וכן תרגום יונתן אִתְרְעֵיתִי. ואדוני אבי ז"ל פירש כי כל לשון בעילה שהוא דבק עם בי"ת הוא לשון גנאי, ופירש גם כן כִּי אָֽנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָכֶם וְלָֽקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם אֶחָד מֵעִיר וגו' (ירמיה ג, יד), לשון גנאי כלומר קצתי בכם בזמן שעבר, אך עתה אקבץ אתכם. וכן אמר בערבי בע"ל א"ל רגו"ל בא"ל מר"ה, כלומר קץ בה וגרשה. ונקראו הפסילים והעצבים בזה השם בַֽעַל־פְּעוֹר (דברים ד, ג), אֶת־שְׁמוֹת הַבְּעָלִים (הושע ב, יט). כי הם כאדון לעובדיהם, בַּעַל גָּד (יהושע יא, יז), כתרגומו מֵישַׁר גָד. ואפשר שנקרא מזה קִרְיַת־בַּעַל (יהושע טו, ס), לפי שהיתה במשור והיא עיר בערי יהודה. ונקראת גם כן בַּֽעֲלָה (יהושע טו, ט), וּבַֽעֲלִי כמו שנאמר מִבַּֽעֲלֵי יְהוּדָה (שמואל ב' ו, ב).
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "My Husband, My Man," The Jewish Press, 8 June 2022. Ohr Somayach does not carry this one; the entry is drawn from the book manuscript, where it is filed under Bamidbar as the haftarah piece.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "My Husband, My Man," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Hoshea 2:18 with Rashi, Radak, Malbim and Abarbanel; Shemos 21:28; Bereishis 2:23, 20:3; Bamidbar 23:13; Devarim 21:13; Tehillim 28:4; Shir HaShirim 1:17; Esther 9:27; Kesubos 71b with Rashi, Maharsha and Shittah Mekubetzes, and Rashi's first edition quoted there; Shabbos 88a; Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 3:6; Tikkunei Zohar, Tikkun 30; Maharal, Netzach Yisrael ch. 47; the Vilna Gaon; Rav Hirsch; Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Chaver; Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik; Rabbi Meir Emden; Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg, Veromemanu Foundation; Beis HaLevi, Ki Sisa; HaMaor HaGadol vol. 2, Hoshea ch. 2; Siach Yitzchak, new edition, likkutim p. 312; Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra.