idols

The framing

Avos d'Rabbi Nosson ch. 34: as there are ten Names for Hashem, so there are ten words for idolatry. Malbim: the correspondence is deliberate, since Hashem set the forces of good and of evil in balance so that a person's choice would be genuinely free, which is the ground of all reward and punishment. Maharitatz (Rabbi Yom Tov Tzahalon) enters the caution that matters for translation: the ten Names all name One, but the ten words for idolatry name ten different sorts of idol worship and are not contextually interchangeable, even though Chazal saw in all of them a reproach to idolatry as such.

Distinctions

elilim (אלילים)

Two lines of explanation. From chalul, hollow: Malbim, that idolaters pretend a holy spirit dwells within the idol when in truth it is hollow and empty; and the version of Rashi to Shabbos 149a cited by Rabbeinu Nissim and Ritva, that their existence was imagined in the empty cavity of their worshippers' hearts. The printed Rashi there instead links elilim to chalalim, corpses, lifeless things. Separately, Rashi (Vayikra 19:4; Yirmiyahu 14:14; Zechariah 11:17; Iyov 13:4), Ibn Ezra (Vayikra 19:4), and Ramban (Iyov 13:4) derive elil from al, "not": the sheer nothingness of an idol's power.

pesel (פסל)

From pasul / nifsal, disqualified: the idol is ruled out of the range of legitimate worship. (The same root gives carving, which is why pesel is the carved image.)

masechah (מסכה)

From nisuch, pouring: Malbim and Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, metal idols formed by molten metal poured into a mold. Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh reads it instead from sichah, anointing, the consecration rite said to draw the deity's spirit into the image.

matzeivah (מצבה)

From nitzav, standing: the single-stone altar, and by extension the idol that must stand where it is put and cannot move of itself.

atzabim (עצבים)

Given in the article as literally "bones," idols being assembled from many parts as a body is from bones, where Hashem is not composed of parts at all. Malbim reads it from atzuv, grieved: they sadden those who serve them, because they never deliver what was expected.

gilulim (גלולים)

From megual, defiled, and glalim, excrement. Rabbeinu Shimshon of Shantz and Pirush HaRaavad to Toras Kohanim make an important restriction: the disgust is not at the sin of idolatry but at the physical state of the idols themselves. Left out in the rain, wooden idols go moldy and metal ones rust; scorched by fire they turn filthy and repulsive. Malbim locates the disgust in the faces of the images, portrayed as insects, moles, and bats.

terafim (תרפים)

From rotting: they go putrid.

shikutzim (שקוצים)

From sheketz, an abomination; the plain sense is that they are abominable.

chamanim (חמנים)

From chamah, the sun, because they are left standing outdoors in the sun. Rav Achai Gaon (680-752) in She'iltos d'Rav Achai Gaon gives a different reason: they die as animals do. The Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (1816-1893), explains the connection: a person who dies is customarily buried to conceal his embarrassment, while an animal's carcass is not given that respect but is left in the open to rot under the sun's heat. Idols, once useless, are likewise left out rather than buried.

asherim (אשרים)

From ishur, validation: an idol receives its validation, meaning its praise, only from others, and is not worthy of praise on its own merits, having no powers of its own. Malbim explains it slightly differently, of moon worship, since the ancients admitted that the moon has no light of its own and takes it from the sun, and worshipped it anyway. Pirush HaRaavad reads asherim from yashar, straightening: if the idol falls it cannot right itself and must be set up again by someone else.

Rendering guidance

• Trap: English "idols" will absorb all ten. Where a pasuk stacks two or three of them, translate each by its own reproach rather than by the category.
• Pesel and masechah are a standing pair (pesel umasechah): "a carved image and a molten image." They name two manufacturing methods, so do not render either simply "idol."
• Elilim is best rendered "nothings" or "worthless things" where the pasuk is making the al point, and "hollow things" where the chalul reading is in play. Say which reading you are following if the passage turns on it.
• Gilulim: "dung-idols" is harsh, and it is meant to be. Note the Raavad and Rabbeinu Shimshon restriction, that the contempt is at the object's filthy condition, before importing moral disgust into a passage that is describing mold and rust.
• Ours, not the column's: matzeivah is not always pejorative in Tanach (Yaakov sets one up), so reserve the idolatrous rendering "pillar" for where the context makes it so.
• Also ours: asherah in Tanach is usually a cultic tree or post rather than an abstract "validation." The ishur and yashar readings above are the column's homiletic derivations of the name, not a license to translate the word that way.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Top Ten Words for Idols," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 23 Adar II 5779 (2019-03-30): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/top-ten-words-for-idols; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8198-top-ten-words-for-idols.md. Primary loci cited: Avos d'Rabbi Nosson ch. 34; Vayikra 19:4; Yirmiyahu 14:14; Zechariah 11:17; Iyov 13:4; Shabbos 149a with Rabbeinu Nissim and Ritva; Rabbeinu Shimshon of Shantz and Pirush HaRaavad to Toras Kohanim; She'iltos d'Rav Achai Gaon; Malbim; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim; Maharitatz.