ritual
magic
להט · לט · אטים
Bottom line
Lahat (Shemos 7:11) is the trick the practitioner works himself, sleight of hand or magic arts; lat (Shemos 7:22, 8:3, 8:14) is the covert method that works through sheidim, secret arts. Both are incantation if you follow Onkelos, who treats them as one word; do not let a translation settle the machlokes silently. Lahat elsewhere means flame (Bereishis 3:24).
The pesukim set the question. Pharaoh's chartumim (usually rendered "necromancers") match Aharon's staff with their lahat (Shemos 7:11), then match blood and frogs with their lat (7:22, 8:3), and at lice fail with their lat altogether and concede "the finger of God" (8:14-15). The word changes after the first plague, and that is what the meforshim are commenting on.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| להט | lahat | sleight of hand, magic arts | the magician acts himself (Rashi to Sanhedrin 67b); flame-quick movement (Ibn Ezra); "flame" in Bereishis 3:24 |
| לט | lat | secret arts | concealed; sheidim do the work (Sanhedrin 67b, Ramban) |
| אטים | ittim | soothsayers | root א-ט, "slow"; the deliberate, drawn-out performance (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
Where the authorities disagree
Are lahat and lat one word or two?
- Synonyms. Targum Onkelos (to Shemos 7:11, 7:22) renders both as lachash, whispered incantation. Ibn Janach and Radak support this lexically: the triliteral ל-א-ט means "covered, hidden," and its middle aleph can drop out or morph into a vav (Shmuel I 21:10; Yeshayahu 25:7), so it drops in lat and turns to hey in lahat. Rashi (to Shemos 7:11) cites Onkelos, and on 7:22 glosses lat as something said quietly. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo) likewise makes them one thing, the speed and dexterity of a conjuror's hand.
- Two distinct modalities. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 67b) reads lat as the use of sheidim and lahat as kishuf. What that means is itself disputed: Rashi (to Sanhedrin 67b), the practitioner acts himself versus sending sheidim; the Tosafists (Moshav Zekenim to Shemos 7:11), sleight of hand versus compelling sheidim; Rabbi Avraham Saba (Tzror HaMor), speech-acts versus magical instruments; Ramban (to Shemos 7:11), destructive angels (aish lohet, Tehillim 104:4) versus the imperceptible sheidim.
- Two words, one trick. Ibn Ezra (to Shemos 7:11, 7:22) rejects the missing-hey derivation, holding that a radical hey does not sit in the middle of a triliteral root. He keeps the words separate but makes them two aspects of one act: lahat the lightning speed of the hand, lat the concealment (compare Shoftim 4:21). Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi says much the same, and Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 7:11) is in this family: lahat the shiny object that distracts the crowd, lat the quick hand while they are looking away.
The Bottom line follows the Gemara, since a translator rendering a Chumash is bound by it, and the Gemara's distinction is the one the pesukim's own shift from lahat to lat invites. Where a passage turns on Onkelos, render both "incantations" and say so.
Whether any of it worked. Rabbi Saadia Gaon (Emunos v'Deos, maamar 3), Rabbeinu Chananel ben Chushiel, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, and Rabbi Avraham Maimuni deny sheidim and the efficacy of kishuf. On their reading "they also did so" does not mean the chartumim achieved what Moshe and Aharon achieved; they performed the speech-acts, but those dry actions created nothing new and only seemed to copy. Rav Saadia Gaon and Ralbag (to Shemos 7:11, 7:22) accordingly take both words to mean something done in a concealed or clandestine way: the chartumim pulled off the illusion at the staff, the blood and the frogs, and at the lice could not manage even the illusion. The Vilna Gaon (Biur HaGra, Yoreh Deah 179:13) turns a variation of this question against the Maimonidean position on kishuf, noting that the Torah itself seemingly attests to the efficacy of the chartumim's efforts. Rabbi David HaNaggid, the Rambam's great-great-grandson, in Klil HaYofi (to Shemos 7:11), answers: he assumes as an axiom that the chartumim did no more than an illusory ploy, and finds two dimensions in it, lahat the sleight of hand, and lat the arousing of the onlooker's imagination so that he thinks he sees what is not there, which is sheidim in the Rambam's sense (Moreh Nevuchim 3:46).
Distinctions
lahat (להט)
Menachem Ibn Saruk lists it under ל-ה-ט, a root carrying two senses, "flame or blade" and "a type of kishuf." The two are one for Radak, who entertains the same possibility and suggests that some forms of magic call for a sharp sword. Menachem never lists lat at all in Machberet Menachem, so there is no telling which root he would have put it under. Rashi (to Shemos 7:11) connects the magical sense to the lahat hacherev hamis'hapeches of Bereishis 3:24: the ever-turning sword looks to an onlooker as though something had been said over it. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo) works from the biliteral ט-ל, "folding": a blade or flame seems to fold through what it cuts or burns, and lahat was borrowed for the fast folding motion of a conjuror's hands.
lat (לט)
Ramban derives it from the biliteral ל-ט, "clandestine" (Shmuel I 18:22), fitting sheidim, whose presence men cannot ordinarily detect. Ibn Ezra points to Shoftim 4:21, Yael approaching Sisera balat, quietly. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim gets there through "folding" too: folded cloth conceals what is inside, and lat is the trick of folding a stone into a cloth and drawing out a bird.
ittim (אטים)
Yeshayahu 19:3, among Egypt's diviners. Menachem and Radak trace it to the biliteral א-ט and define it as a kind of kishuf; Ibn Janach makes it a kind of astrologer. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads the root as "slow movement": ittim are magicians who worked deliberately slowly when performing their rites, to heighten the drama and persuade the onlookers that the acts worked. Rashi (to Yeshayahu 19:3) takes ittim as the name of an idolatrous deity instead, which the column notes is often identified with the Egyptian god Atum or the Sumerian Ittyi. The same root gives l'at, "slowly, gently" (Bereishis 33:14; Shmuel II 18:5; Yeshayahu 8:6; Iyov 15:11), and the lexicographers dispute whether the opening lamed is a radical. The column raises א-ט as a root seemingly related to all of this, but says plainly that it has found no one who explicitly connects lat or lahat to it.
Rendering guidance
- Shemos 7:11 בְּלַהֲטֵיהֶם: "with their sleight of hand," or "with their magic arts." Shemos 7:22 and 8:3 בְּלָטֵיהֶם: "with their secret arts."
- Trap: English "magic" or "sorcery" absorbs both, and "incantation" absorbs both in Onkelos's direction. The Chumash deliberately switches words after the first plague, so one English word for both erases the shift every meforash is commenting on. Keep two English phrases.
- Lahat in Bereishis 3:24 is "the flame of the ever-turning sword," not magic; the magical sense is borrowed from it, not the reverse.
- Ittim in Yeshayahu 19:3 is a different root. Render it "soothsayers" and footnote Rashi's reading that it is an idol's name.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vaera: The Trick of Magi," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 Teves 5783 (2023-01-21): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10804-vaera-the-trick-of-magi.md. Primary loci: Shemos 7:11, 7:22, 8:3, 8:14-15; Bereishis 3:24; Sanhedrin 67b with Rashi; Targum Onkelos, Ramban, and Ibn Ezra to Shemos 7:11 and 7:22; Moshav Zekenim and Tzror HaMor there; Cheshek Shlomo and Yerios Shlomo; Rav Hirsch to Shemos 7:11; Tehillim 104:4; Shmuel I 18:22, 21:10; Shoftim 4:21; Yeshayahu 8:6, 19:3 with Rashi, 25:7; Bereishis 33:14; Shmuel II 18:5; Iyov 15:11; Moreh Nevuchim 3:46; Biur HaGra, Yoreh Deah 179:13; Rabbi David HaNaggid, Klil HaYofi to Shemos 7:11, whose relevant excerpts were first published by Rabbi Moshe Maimon of Jackson, NJ, in Mechilta vol. 4 (September 2022), a work that also cites the lost commentaries of Rav Saadia Gaon and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi to Shemos. The identification of Rashi's ittim with the Egyptian god Atum or the Sumerian Ittyi is the column's own, and is reported here as such.