society
merchant
At a glance
In short
Malbim (to Yechezkel 17:4, 27:3) makes the three a graded set: the socher is the wholesaler, the cnaani the trader in the middle, and the rochel the peddler who buys from the socher and goes door to door. Rashi (to Erchin 23b) takes socher and rochel as more or less synonymous, and Rabbi Klein, had he been asked, would have put the cnaani at the top, as the super-wholesaler who supplies the socher. Standing alone, socher is simply merchant. Tagar, the Aramaic word, is also merchant; Rashi (to Eruvin 55a) makes the tagar a local seller who stays in his own town, and the socher one who goes around the various towns. Cnaani, in a string of pesukim, means "trader," not "Canaanite": Bereishis 38:2 on Chazal's reading, Yeshayahu 23:8, Mishlei 31:24, Zecharyah 14:21 as most commentators read it, and, with Rashi, Yechezkel 16:29, Hoshea 12:8 and Iyov 40:30.
Distinctions
Socher (סוחר)
Root ס-ח-ר, about sixteen times in Tanach, with verbs for trading and nouns for merchandise; the Midianite socharim who passed by Yosef's pit and, the pasuk implies, bought him and sold him to the Yishmaelim (Bereishis 37:28). The root also carries "around": secharchar (Tehillim 38:11), round-going movement, and modern Hebrew secharchoret, dizziness; Targum's usual rendering of saviv is s'chor; and Chazal have the warning to a nazir who nears a vineyard, lech lech, sechor sechor, "go, go, around, around, do not approach the vineyard" (Shabbos 13a and parallels).
- Ibn Saruk and Ibn Janach seem to take the "merchant" and "around" senses as two unrelated meanings in one root.
- Radak bridges them, since a merchant typically travels around.
- Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi (1821-1898) suggests that perhaps socher derives instead from sahar, "moon," the ches and hei interchanging, since just as the full moon is seen as a complete circle, so the socher goes around in a circuit selling his wares.
Rochel (רוכל)
Seventeen times, mostly in Yechezkel, with a feminine rocheles. The adjacent rachil from the same root gives rechilus, talebearing, famously at Vayikra 19:16 and in five other passages (Yirmiyahu 6:28, 9:3; Yechezkel 22:9; Mishlei 11:13, 20:19), because merchants who travelled from place to place were often taken for tale-mongers, carrying news and rumor from one town to the next.
- Rashi (to Vayikra 19:16) reads the kaf as interchangeable with gimmel, linking rochel to regel, "foot," and meragel, "spy"; Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (Chosam Tochnis) explains that a merchant has in some ways to function like a spy, going place to place to scout out the best merchandise to buy and sell.
- Rabbi Klein adds his own suggestion, that perhaps a rochel would typically travel by foot to hawk his goods, which bears similarities to the "around" in socher.
- Rashbam (to Bava Basra 29b) sharpens the definition further: the rochel goes around the various towns and comes back to his home city only after a while.
Cnaani (כנעני)
Pesachim 50a holds that Yehudah's father-in-law could not have been a literal Canaanite: if Avraham was so particular that Yitzchak not marry a Canaanite woman (Bereishis 24:3, 24:37), and Yaakov's parents were as meticulous about Yaakov (27:46, 28:1, 28:6), it is highly implausible that Yehudah would go against the norm. Chazal therefore felt forced to read ish cnaani (38:2) as his occupation, a merchant; Ramban (to 38:2) clarifies that even so he incidentally lived in the land of Canaan, and see Radak there.
The reading is less farfetched than it sounds, since cnaani means "merchant" in a number of pesukim. Yeshayahu 23:8 calls Tyre "the magnificent, whose merchants (socher) are princes, whose cnaanim are the esteemed of the earth," which Rashi and Radak read as merchants, Metzudas Tzion adding that socher and cnaan are synonyms set side by side for poetic effect. Tyre is associated with the Canaanite sub-group known as Phoenician/Punic, a community largely made up of traders who won a reputation in the ancient world for their success in overseas commerce. Echoing that, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter (1743-1826) writes in HaRechasim LaVikah (to Vayikra 16:21) that while cnaani may originally have been a gentilic for the Canaanite people, once they gained fame as traders the word widened to anyone in that trade. An inscription attributed to Pharaoh Rameses III seemingly uses cnaani in this latter sense.
Zecharyah 14:21 foretells a Messianic era, long after the Canaanites had ceased to exist as a nation, in which there will be no cnaani in the Beis HaMikdash. The commentators explain the prediction in various ways, most of them taking it to mean that there will no longer be any need for merchants to offer their goods, and Rashi (there) cites that explanation; alternatively Rashi reads cnaani as a contraction of ein kan ani, "there is no poor man here," a reference to the prosperity the Jewish People will enjoy then.
The eishes chayil makes linens and sells them, "and a sash she gives to the cnaani" (Mishlei 31:24), where the commentators unanimously take cnaani as a merchant, Rashi using the Aramaic tagar, Ibn Ezra and Ralbag the Hebrew socher.
Against all this precedent, Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche (1920-2016) notes a major difficulty: Shua's daughter herself is called a cnaanis (Divrei HaYamim I 2:3), which should mean "Canaanitess" literally, and it makes no sense for the pasuk to call the daughter by an appellation that fits her father's occupation, which suggests that cnaani said of the father is a nationality after all. Unless, Rabbi Klein suggests, Shua's daughter was perhaps a trader herself: Targum Rav Yosef to Divrei HaYamim there renders cnaanis as pragmatita, a Greek term for a female merchant, which supports Chazal's reading of the father's cnaani as well.
- The Zohar (Lech Lecha 80a) says the yetzer hara is called cnaani because it serves as a sort of merchant, supplying its customers with (evil) sustenance like a sleazy salesman who hawks poor merchandise and convinces his buyers they cannot live without it. In line with this, though without citing it, Meiri (to Mishlei 31:24) explains the Woman of Valor's selling a sash to the cnaani as her setting boundaries around the yetzer hara to rein it in.
- Tanchuma (Masei 9) explains that the Holy Land is called Eretz Cnaan because it is the land of merchandise; Rabbi Shlomo Fischer (1932-2021) clarifies that this merchandise is Torah, more precious than any physical commodity, natural resource or article of trade (Mishlei 3:14). This conjures the idea that the land is especially suited to Torah study.
Either way, cnaan there is being expounded as merchants and merchandise, not genealogical Canaanites.
Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 10:6): Canaan means low, the lowland of the Canaanites set against Aram, the uplifted highlands.
Tagar (תגר)
The word Chazal use when they gloss cnaani: Targum Onkelos and Targum pseudo-Yonasan to Bereishis 38:2, Bereishis Rabbah 85:4, Pesachim 50a, Rashi to Bereishis 38:2, and others; Targum also uses it for socher (Melachim I 10:28; Yeshayahu 23:8) and for rochel (Melachim I 10:15).
- Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (1469-1549), in his lexicon of Rabbinic Hebrew Sefer HaTishbi, gives ת-ג-ר two separate entries, tagar ("merchant") and teigar ("dispute," "controversy," "fight"), and the fact that he divided them shows he took the two as unrelated.
- Dr. Alexander Kohut (1842-1894) writes in Aruch HaShalem to the same effect: tagar derives from the triliteral Aramaic root ת-ג-ר, while teigar derives from the biblical Hebrew root ג-ר-(ה), to instigate or incite.
On that basis Rabbi Klein argues his own point, that although tagar is semantically synonymous with socher, the two cannot strictly be called synonyms, since they come from two different languages. But Eruvin 55a says Torah is not found among socharim or tagarim, who are always looking elsewhere for the goods, and that wording implies the two do not quite mean the same thing. Rashi (there) accordingly reads a real difference: the socher goes around the various towns, the tagar is a local seller who stays in his own town, so that on Rashi the difference is semantic as well as etymological.
Pragmatia and melay
Pragmatia/prakmatia in Rabbinic Hebrew are Greek loanwords for "merchandise," etymologically related to the English pragmatic and practical; Rashi (to Moed Katan 10b) defines pragmatia as sechorah, which brings the cluster full circle. Melay, "merchandise," "stock," seems to be a cognate of maleh, "full," yet Rashi defines it as sechorah (Pesachim 53b), as pragmatia (Shabbos 56a), or as both (Sotah 47b).
Where the authorities disagree
Whether socher and rochel differ at all.
- Rashi (to Erchin 23b) defines rochel by socher, showing that he saw the two as more or less synonymous.
- Malbim (to Yechezkel 17:4, 27:3) builds a three-tier trade: super-wholesalers who sail abroad in large ships to import, the socher who buys from them in bulk and supplies the rochel, and the rochel who buys from the socher and goes place to place, with the cnaani a middleman between the last two, selling on a smaller scale than the socher but a bigger man than the rochel; a similar understanding is implied by Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi, who writes that the rochel does not travel a socher's distances.
- Rabbi Klein enters his own dissent: had he been asked, he would have put the cnaani at the top, as the super-wholesaler who supplies the socher, since the Canaanites were known for overseas trading ventures, which fits Malbim's description of those mega-suppliers.
What a rochel sells. Rashi, consistently and in many places (to Vayikra 19:16; Melachim I 10:15; Shabbos 90a, 91b; Yevamos 24b, 63b; Kiddushin 82a; Bava Kamma 82a; Bava Basra 22a; Sanhedrin 100b), makes him a seller of perfumes and fragrances for women, though in some contexts the word seems to mean a merchant of any sort of goods (see pseudo-Rashi to Nazir 21a).
Where cnaani as "merchant" comes from.
- Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter (HaRechasim LaVikah to Vayikra 16:21): the word may originally have been a gentilic for the nation, and widened, once the Canaanites were famous as traders, to anyone in the trade.
- Rabbi Shimon Yehuda Leib Goldblit (Leshon Chachamim), and in a similar vein earlier Rabbi Yosef Nechemias (to Mishlei 31:24), take it from כ-נ-ע, submissiveness, as in hachna'ah, because a merchant typically speaks to his prospective customers in a subdued, servile way.
- Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche suggests cnaani means merchant for the same reason socher does: its core root is the two-letter נ-ע, movement, as in tenuah, and it names the merchant's habit of being constantly on the road.
Also discussed in
- Aroundסוחר / socher (ס-ח-ר)
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
כ-נ-ע
Lowering: to be humbled, and to bring another low. כְּנַעַן is also a trader, a merchant.
Brought low
כִּֽי־ נִכְנַע אַחְאָב (Melachim I 21:29), that Achav humbled himself; וַיִּכָּנַע מִדְיָן לִפְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (Shoftim 8:28), Midyan was subdued before Bnei Yisrael; כְּהִכָּנַע מְנַשֶּׁה אָבִיו (Divrei HaYamim II 33:23), as Menasheh his father humbled himself. Where the word acts on another it is to subdue: הוּא יַשְׁמִידֵם וְהוּא יַכְנִיעֵם לְפָנֶיךָ (Devarim 9:3), He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you; וַיַּכְנַע אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא (Shoftim 4:23), Hashem subdued on that day; וַיַּכְנַע בֶּעָמָל לִבָּם (Tehillim 107:12), He brought their heart low with toil. All of them are the matter of lowering.
Gather your humbling from the land
אִסְפִּי מֵאֶרֶץ כִּנְעָתֵךְ (Yirmiyahu 10:17), gather your humbling from the land, which Radak explains as: gather in from the world the humbling you used to work on them, for you are destined to sit under siege. אִסְפִּי here is like אֱסֹף יָדֶֽךָ (Shmuel I 14:19), withdraw your hand.
The trader
כְּנַעַן בְּיָדוֹ מֹֽאזְנֵי מִרְמָה (Hoshea 12:8), a trader in whose hand are scales of deceit, and וַיְבִיאֵהוּ אֶל־אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן בְּעִיר רֹֽכְלִים שָׂמֽוֹ (Yechezkel 17:4), he brought it to a land of trade, in a city of merchants he set it; the nun of the word is an added letter. So too וַֽחֲגוֹר נָֽתְנָה לַֽכְּנַֽעֲנִֽי (Mishlei 31:24), she gave a belt to the merchant, and in another form כִּנְעָנֶיהָ נִכְבַּדֵּי־אָֽרֶץ (Yeshayahu 23:8), her כנענים are the honoured of the earth, which he explains as סוחריה, her merchants.
The Targum reads trade
אִסְפִּי מֵאֶרֶץ כִּנְעָתֵךְ can be read from this second sense, of trade, and so the Targum says: כְּנוּשִׁי מֵאַרְעָא סְחוֹרְתִּיךְ, gather your merchandise from the land. By the Targum's view so too וַיַּרְא־שָׁם יְהוּדָה בַּת־אִישׁ כְּנַֽעֲנִי (Bereishis 38:2), Yehudah saw there the daughter of a merchant, and יֶחֱצוּהוּ בֵּין כְּנַֽעֲנִֽים (Iyov 40:30), they will divide him among merchants.
No merchant any more
כִּי נִדְמָה כָּל־עַם כְּנַעַן (Tzefaniah 1:11), for all the people of כנען are cut off, may be from this sense as well: the rich men who hold the trade, as the pasuk goes on, נכרתו כל נטילי כסף, all who are laden with silver are cut off. And so וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶה כְנַֽעֲנִי עוֹד (Zecharyah 14:21), there will be no merchant any more: so many will dedicate vessels to the Beis Hamikdash that they will have no need of a merchant to sell to them.
His father: an actual Canaanite
His father writes that the כנעני there is a Canaanite in fact, from the nation of Canaan. In his father's reading, since the hewers of wood and drawers of water were Canaanites, the Chivim whom Yehoshua made hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Beis Hamikdash, the pasuk means that they will no longer be the hewers and the drawers, for men from among the great of the nations will come to the service of the Beis Hamikdash, as it says וְגַם־מֵהֶם אֶקַּח לַכֹּֽהֲנִים לַֽלְוִיִּם (Yeshayahu 66:21), and from them too I will take for kohanim and leviim.
הֲרָאִיתָ כִּֽי־נִכְנַע אַחְאָב (מלכים א' כא, כט), וַיִּכָּנַע מִדְיָן לִפְנֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (שופטים ח, כח), כְּהִכָּנַע מְנַשֶּׁה אָבִיו (דברי הימים ב' לג, כג), וּבְהִכָּֽנְעוֹ שָׁב מִמֶּנּוּ אַף־י"י (שם יב, יב). והכבד [הִפְעִיל] וְהִכְנַעְתִּי אֶת־כָּל־אֽוֹיְבֶיךָ (שם א' יז, י), הוּא יַשְׁמִידֵם וְהוּא יַכְנִיעֵם לְפָנֶיךָ (דברים ט, ג), וַיַּכְנַע אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא (שופטים ד, כג), וַיַּכְנַע בֶּעָמָל לִבָּם (תהלים קז, יב). והשם אִסְפִּי מֵאֶרֶץ כִּנְעָתֵךְ (ירמיה י, יז), כלם ענין השפלה. ופירוש אִסְפִּי מֵאֶרֶץ כִּנְעָתֵךְ אספי מהעולם ההכנעה שהיית עושה להם כי את עתידה לשבת במצור. וענין אִסְפִּי כענין אֱסֹף יָדֶֽךָ (שמואל א' יד, יט). כְּנַעַן בְּיָדוֹ מֹֽאזְנֵי מִרְמָה (הושע יב, ז) וַיְבִיאֵהוּ אֶל־אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן בְּעִיר רֹֽכְלִים שָׂמֽוֹ (יחזקאל יז, ד), הנו"ן נוספת. וַֽחֲגוֹר נָֽתְנָה לַֽכְּנַֽעֲנִֽי (משלי לא, כד). ולדעת התרגום כן וַיַּרְא־שָׁם יְהוּדָה בַּת־אִישׁ כְּנַֽעֲנִי (בראשית לח, ב), יֶחֱצוּהוּ בֵּין כְּנַֽעֲנִֽים (איוב מ, ל). ובא במשקל אחר כִּנְעָנֶיהָ נִכְבַּדֵּי־אָֽרֶץ (ישעיה כג, ח), פירוש סוחריה. ויש לפרש מזה אִסְפִּי מֵאֶרֶץ כִּנְעָתֵךְ. וכן אמר התרגום כְּנוּשִׁי מֵאַרְעָא סְחוֹרְתִּיךְ. וכן יתכן מזה כִּי נִדְמָה כָּל־עַם כְּנַעַן (צפניה א, יא), כלומר העשירים בעלי הסחורה כמו שאמר נכרתו כל נטילי כסף. וכן וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶה כְנַֽעֲנִי עוֹד (זכריה יד, כא), סוחר, כלומר רבים יהיו המקדישים כלים לבית המקדש עד שלא יצטרכו לסוחר שימכור להם. ואדוני אבי ז"ל כתב כנעני ממש מִגּוֹי כנען. וליפי שהיו חוטבי עצים ושואבי מים כנענים והם החִוִּים שנתנם יהושע חוטבי עצים ושואבי מים לבית המקדש אמר כי לא יהיו עוד הם חוטבי עצים ושואבי מים כי מגדולי האומות יבואו לעבודת בית המקדש, כמו שאמר וְגַם־מֵהֶם אֶקַּח לַכֹּֽהֲנִים לַֽלְוִיִּם (ישעיה סו, כא).
ס-ח-ר
To go round about. From this a trader is socher, going round the lands and back, and a round shield is sochera; also trade, wares, and a gem perhaps named for traders.
Going round
סָֽחֲרוּ אֶל־אֶרֶץ וְלֹא יָדָֽעוּ (Yirmiyahu 14:18), which Radak glosses סבבו, they went round, to a land they did not know. And לִבִּי סְחַרְחַר (Tehillim 38:11), my heart goes round and round and will not settle, from the weight of troubles.
In the Targum
The Targum renders סָבִיב סָבִיב (Yechezkel 37:2), round about, as סְחוֹר סְחוֹר, and וַיִּסֹּב מֵֽעֲלֵיהֶם (Bereishis 42:24), he turned away from them, as וְאִסְתַּחַר מֵעִלָּוֵיהוֹן.
Why a trader is a socher
From this sense the dealer is called socher, because he is always going round the lands, out and back: אֲנָשִׁים מִדְיָנִים סֹֽחֲרִים (Bereishis 37:28), Midianite traders, and אֲשֶׁר סֹֽחֲרֶיה שָׂרִים (Yeshayahu 23:8), whose merchants are princes.
Trading and wares
שְׁבוּ וּסְחָרוּהָ (Bereishis 34:10), settle and trade in the land, and תַּרְשִׁישׁ סֹֽחַרְתֵּךְ (Yechezkel 27:12), Tarshish was your merchant, which Radak reads as bringing the wares to you. As a noun, אִיִּים רַבִּים סְחֹרַת יָדֵךְ (Yechezkel 27:15), many islands were the market of your hand, and טוֹב סַחְרָהּ (Mishlei 3:14), her trade is better.
The round shield
From the same sense the shield that is round on every side is called sochera: צִנָּה וְֽסֹחֵרָה אֲמִתּֽוֹ (Tehillim 91:4), His truth is a shield and a buckler.
The stone in Esther
וְדַר וְסֹחָֽרֶת (Esther 1:6), dar and sochares, is a precious stone; perhaps it is called sochares because it is always in the hands of traders. As Chazal say of that pasuk (Megillah 12a), it is one stone, which proclaims dror, freedom, to all who deal in wares.
סָֽחֲרוּ אֶל־אֶרֶץ וְלֹא יָדָֽעוּ (ירמיה יד, יח), פירושו סבבו. לִבִּי סְחַרְחַר (תהלים לח, יא), כלומר הלך סביב סביב ואינו מיושב מרוב הצרות. ותרגום סָבִיב סָבִיב (יחזקאל לז, ב) סְחוֹר סְחוֹר. וַיִּסֹּב מֵֽעֲלֵיהֶם (בראשית מב, כד) וְאִסְתַּחַר מֵעִלָּוֵיהוֹן. ומזה הענין נקרא התגר סוחר לפי שהוא סובב את הארצות תמיד הולך ושב. עֹבֵר לַסֹּחֵֽר (בראשית כג, ז), אֲנָשִׁים מִדְיָנִים סֹֽחֲרִים (בראשית לז, כח), אֲשֶׁר סֹֽחֲרֶיה שָׂרִים (ישעיה כג, ח). שְׁבוּ וּסְחָרוּהָ (בראשית לד, י), רצה לומר סחרו בה, תַּרְשִׁישׁ סֹֽחַרְתֵּךְ (יחזקאל כז, יב), רוצה לומר מביאה הסחורות אליך. והשם אִיִּים רַבִּים סְחֹרַת יָדֵךְ (יחזקאל כז, טו). ומשקל אחר סַחְרָהּ וְאֶתְנַנָּהּ (ישעיה כג, יח), טוֹב סַחְרָהּ (משלי ג, יד). ומשקל אחר מִסְּחַר־כָּסֶף (שם), וַתְּהִי סְחַר גּוֹיִֽם (ישעיה כג, ג), וּֽסְחַר־כּוּשׁ (ישעיה מה, יד). ובתוספת מ"ם וּמִסְחַר הָרֹֽכְלִים (מלכים א' י, טו). וכן נקרא מזה הענין המגן שהוא עגול סביב סביב סוחרה, צִנָּה וְֽסֹחֵרָה אֲמִתּֽוֹ (תהלים צא, ד), רודלא [טארג"א בלע"ז]. וְדַר וְסֹחָֽרֶת (אסתר א, ו), אבן יקרה, ואפשר שתהיה ביד הסוחרים תמיד ולפיכך נקראת סוחרת. כמו שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל על פסוק דר וסוחרת (מגלה יב, ע"א) שהיא אבן אחת שקוראה דרור לכל בעלי סחורה.
ר-כ-ל
A merchant, and רכלה, merchandise. רָכִיל is talebearing, a sense close to the first: the talebearer passes words along as the merchant passes goods.
The trader and his wares
בְּעִיר רֹֽכְלִים שָׂמֽוֹ (Yechezkel 17:4), he set it in a city of merchants, and בְּנֵי דְדָן רֹֽכְלַיִךְ (Yechezkel 27:15), the sons of Dedan your traders: these are the merchants. The noun for the merchandise is רכלה, as in בְּרֹב רְכֻלָּֽתְךָ (Yechezkel 28:16), in the abundance of your merchandise, and וּבָֽזְזוּ רְכֻלָּתֵךְ (Yechezkel 26:12), they plundered your merchandise. Another pattern of it is וַֽאֲרֻזִים בְּמַרְכֻלְתֵּֽךְ (Yechezkel 27:24), and cedars in your merchandise.
Targum Yonasan on Ashur and Kilmad
On אַשּׁוּר כִּלֽמַד רֹֽכַלְתֵּֽךְ (Yechezkel 27:23), Ashur and Kilmad your traders, Targum Yonasan has מְדִינַן אַתּוּר וּמָדַי אִינוּן תַּגָרֵיךְ, the provinces of Ashur and Madai, they are your merchants. Radak has already given all of these another explanation at the root לָמַד.
The spice seller
At times the word is said of the spice seller alone, one sort among the merchants: מִכֹּל אַבְקַת רוֹכֵֽל (Shir HaShirim 3:6), from all the powders of the spice seller, and הֶֽחֱזִיקוּ הַצֹּֽרְפִים וְהָרֹֽכְלִֽים (Nechemiah 3:32), the goldsmiths and the spice sellers made repairs. וַיָּלִינוּ הָרֹֽכְלִים וּמֹֽכְרֵי כָל־מִמְכָּר (Nechemiah 13:20), the merchants and the sellers of every ware lodged, may be of that kind too.
Talebearing
רָכִיל is a name for talebearing: לֹֽא־תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל (Vayikra 19:16), you shall not go about as a talebearer; הֹֽלְכֵי רָכִיל (Yirmiyahu 6:28), goers of talebearing; אַנְשֵׁי רָכִיל הָיוּ בָךְ (Yechezkel 22:9), men of talebearing were in you. The word is joined with going, since the talebearer goes about in his fellow's house, and what he heard in his house he goes and tells another.
Why the two senses are close
This sense too is close to the first, for the talebearer is like the רוכל, the merchant who has many kinds of goods in hand, and like the spice seller called רוכל, who has many kinds of spices, as it says מִכֹּל אַבְקַת רוֹכֵֽל, from all the powders of the spice seller. So the talebearer gathers words from this one and that one and tells them to this one and that one; or, as the trader moves goods along, buying from one and selling to another, so the talebearer moves words along, hearing from one and telling another.
בְּעִיר רֹֽכְלִים שָׂמֽוֹ (יחזקאל יז, ד), וַיָּלִינוּ הָרֹֽכְלִים וּמֹֽכְרֵי כָל־מִמְכָּר (נחמיה יג, כ), רֹכֶלֶת הָֽעַמִּים (יחזקאל כז, ג) דְּדָן רֹֽכַלְתֵּךְ (יחזקאל כז, כ), אַשּׁוּר כִּלֽמַד רֹֽכַלְתֵּֽךְ (יחזקאל כז, כג), תרגום יונתן מְדִינַן אַתּוּר וּמָדַי אִינוּן תַּגָרֵיךְ. וכבר כתבנו כלם בשרש לָמַד פירוש אחר. בְּנֵי דְדָן רֹֽכְלַיִךְ (יחזקאל כז, טו), הם הסוחרים. והשם לסחורה רכלה, בְּרֹב רְכֻלָּֽתְךָ (יחזקאל כח, טז), וּבָֽזְזוּ רְכֻלָּתֵךְ (יחזקאל כו, יב). ומשקל אחר וַֽאֲרֻזִים בְּמַרְכֻלְתֵּֽךְ (יחזקאל כז, כד). ויש שיאמר על הבשם לבד מכלל הסוחרים מִכֹּל אַבְקַת רוֹכֵֽל (שיר השירים ג, ו), הֶֽחֱזִיקוּ הַצֹּֽרְפִים וְהָרֹֽכְלִֽים (נחמיה ג, לב). ואפשר שיהיו כמוהם וַיָּלִינוּ הָרֹֽכְלִים וּמֹֽכְרֵי כָל־מִמְכָּר (נחמיה יג, כ). לֹֽא־תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל (ויקרא יט, טז), הֹֽלְכֵי רָכִיל (ירמיה ו, כח), אַנְשֵׁי רָכִיל הָיוּ בָךְ (יחזקאל כב, ט), רכיל הוא שם למלשינות. ונשתתף הלשון הזה עם ההליכה, לפי שהמלשין הולך בבית חבירו ומה ששמע בביתו הולך ומספר לחבירו. וגם זה הענין קרוב לענין הראשון כי המלשין כמו הרוכל הסוחר שיש בידו כמה מיני סחורות. וכן הבשם שנקרא רוכל יש בידו כמה מיני בשמים כמו שאמר מִכֹּל אַבְקַת רוֹכֵֽל. וכן המלשין מאסף הדברים מזה ומזה ומספר לזה ולזה. או כמו שהסוחר מעתיק הסחורות כי יקנה מזה וימכור לזה כן המלשין מעתיק הדברים שמע מזה ויספר לזה.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayeshev: Mercantile Man," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 December 2023.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Mercantile Man," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 24:3, 24:37, 27:46, 28:1, 28:6, 37:28, 38:2; Vayikra 19:16 with Rashi; Mishlei 3:14, 11:13, 20:19, 31:24; Yirmiyahu 6:28, 9:3; Yeshayahu 23:8 with Rashi, Radak and Metzudas Tzion; Yechezkel 17:4 and 27:3 with Malbim, and 22:9; Zecharyah 14:21 with Rashi; Tehillim 38:11; Melachim I 10:15, 10:28; Divrei HaYamim I 2:3 with Targum Rav Yosef; Pesachim 50a and 53b; Eruvin 55a and Erchin 23b with Rashi; Shabbos 13a, 56a, 90a, 91b; Yevamos 24b, 63b; Kiddushin 82a; Bava Kamma 82a; Bava Basra 22a; Nazir 21a (pseudo-Rashi); Moed Katan 10b; Sotah 47b; Bava Basra 29b with Rashbam; Bereishis Rabbah 85:4; Tanchuma Masei 9 with Rabbi Shlomo Fischer; Zohar Lech Lecha 80a with Meiri to Mishlei 31:24; Chosam Tochnis; Sefer HaTishbi; Aruch HaShalem; Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 10:6.