muzzle

Distinctions

resen (רסן)

Five occurrences in Tanach, once as the place-name Resen (Bereishis 10:12) and four as the mouthpiece (Yeshayahu 30:28, Iyov 30:11, Iyov 41:5, Tehillim 32:9). Radak (to Yeshayahu 30:28): a resen is what steers an animal where its rider wants it to go; in Sefer HaShorashim he adds a second aspect, that it serves as a muzzle blocking the animal's mouth, presumably (so the column reads him) so that it will not bite people or eat from other people's fields. Rashi (to Yeshayahu 30:28) glosses it with the rabbinic prumbia. Menachem Ibn Saruk, Yonah Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon and Radak take the root as ר-ס-ן. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim treats the final nun as non-essential and derives it from biliteral ר-ס, "breaking something off into smaller pieces" (compare la'ros, to drip or sprinkle, Yechezkel 46:14, the Modern Hebrew tarsis, spray, and the nouns resisim, Amos 6:11, and resisei, Shir HaShirim 5:2): the bit makes the animal drool, and the dripping saliva is a small thing broken off a bigger one. Rabbi Aharon Marcus applies the same root differently: the bit bifurcates the space inside the mouth. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 2:2) connects resen to roznim, nobles, by the samech/zayin interchange: the roznim steer the state as the resen steers the beast. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Ohalei Yehuda) reads it as a portmanteau of ratz and ein, "no running."

meteg (מתג)

Also five occurrences (Shmuel II 8:1, Melachim II 19:28, Yeshayahu 37:29, Mishlei 26:3, Tehillim 32:9). Radak (Sefer HaShorashim): a long piece of metal set in the mouth to control the animal, and he states outright that it is not built like a resen without saying how they differ. Ohalei Yehuda offers two etymologies by letter-interchange: gimmel for kuf, linking meteg to matok (sweet), since control of one's beast is desirable and enjoyable to the rider (the column adds its own version: just as a man wants to keep something sweet in his mouth, so does a rider want to keep the meteg in his horse's mouth); or mem for nun with gimmel for kuf, linking it to nituk (untie), since the meteg's virtue is a knot that will not come undone. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg suggests tugah / yagon (distress), since the meteg leads by causing pain. Rabbi Amitai Ben-David notes the later Masoretic meteg, the short vertical stress mark, and the Modern Hebrew "switch" that took its name from the shape, as did certain kinds of worm.

The difference between them

Bedersi (Chotam Tochnit, the first work on Hebrew synonyms): meteg is a metal bit; resen is either a rope at the neck or a leather bit. The column brings a similar approach favored by Dr. David J. A. Clines in his dictionary of Classical Hebrew: meteg is the entire bridle by which one directs an animal, while resen is specifically the mouthpiece joining the bridle to the animal, or the reins, the long strap held by the rider and attached to the bridle. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi (Otzar Nirdafim) holds the exact opposite of Bedersi, meteg the leather strap and resen the metal bit, tying meteg to metach (stretching out) via gimmel/ches. That they are near-synonyms is clear from their pairing in Tehillim 32:9 and from Targum rendering both by zemam (Yeshayahu 30:28, Iyov 30:11; Melachim II 19:28, Yeshayahu 37:29). In the one pasuk where both stand together, Targum to Tehillim 32:9 distinguishes them: meteg becomes zemama, resen becomes prumbia (Targum to Iyov 41:5 likewise renders resen as prumbia).

zemam (זמם)

The Aramaic and rabbinic term for the muzzle. The Torah forbids muzzling an animal at its work (Devarim 25:4), and the Mishnah (Terumos 9:3), ruling that one threshing terumah should hang a basket of the same species from the animal's neck so that it not be restrained from eating, uses the verb zomem for muzzling. Bereishis Rabbah 41:5, Targum Yonasan and Targum Yerushalmi (to Bereishis 13:7), relating the tradition Rashi cites there, all use cognates of zemam for the muzzle Avraham put on his animals, which Lot did not. The homograph zomem means to plot (Tehillim 37:12; ascribed even to Hashem, Yirmiyahu 51:12, Eichah 2:17, Zechariah 1:6; the conspiring witnesses of Devarim 19:19 and the eidim zomemim of the Mishnah, Bava Kamma 7:3, Sanhedrin 6:2, Makkos 1:3 and 1:6), and zimah is the licentious scheme of Vayikra 18:17 and 20:14. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: the core of biliteral ז-ם is "intellectual decision," yielding zamam, yuzma, zimah (the mind's decision to do wrong), nezem (the nose-ring that entices toward zimah) and even zman, time being graspable only by the intellect; he does not connect the muzzle. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg opens the way to a bridge: an intellectual decision closes off the other options, and so nezem is the ring that must form a complete circle to be affixed on the wearer. Mecklenburg himself stops there; it is the column that adds, in its own voice, that zemam is by that logic what closes an animal's mouth, or alternatively that the zemam is fixed on the animal's face just as the nezem is fixed on a human face. Shadal (to Vayikra 18:17) reaches the same place from the other side: what typifies a zamam is that it stays within the realm of the mind, so that zemamah would typically be evil thoughts though it could in theory be good ones; zimah is the secret thought a man holds in and never puts into words, and lying with a woman and her daughter or granddaughter is called zimah because society holds it so heinous that one would keep such fantasies secret. So too, Shadal writes, the muzzle locks the animal's mouth against eating and biting. Bereishis Rabbah 75:9 reads the zemam of Tehillim 140:9 as a muzzle over Esav's face. Yevamos 37b parses zimah otherwise, as a portmanteau of zu mah hi, "what is she," speaking of the after-effects of promiscuity, which leave people's lineage in question for want of clear parentage.

prumbia (פרומביא) and afsar (אפסר)

Prumbia appears in the Mishnah (Shabbos 5:1, Keilim 11:5) and in Bava Kamma 17b, where an animal damages by means of the prumbia on its mouth; Rashi uses it to gloss resen. Dr. Alexander Kohut identifies prumbia as a permutation of the Greek phorbeia, the leather strap worn by players of the aulos, a pipe-like wind instrument, to spare their lips and cheeks the strain of continuous blowing; in Latin and English the accessory is a capistrum. Being something like a muzzle or halter, it came in rabbinic parlance to be associated with an animal's headgear. The rabbinic form carries an extra mem vowel, what linguists call epenthetic vowel insertion. Bereishis Rabbah 45:7 has the variant probi / prochi, seemingly cognate with prumbia/phorbeia, in the aphorism about the donkey's ears. Afsar (from Persian) is the bit or reins; because taking hold of an animal's afsar acquires the animal, the term carries a legal sense in the Bavli for the mechanism by which anything is acquired (Kiddushin 27a-b, Bava Basra 53b, Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 19:2).

Rendering guidance

• Tehillim 32:9, where both appear: "with bit and bridle" keeps them apart, following Bedersi's metal/leather split. Note in a footnote that Otzar Nirdafim reverses it rather than silently picking a side.
• Trap: English "bridle" will happily swallow resen, meteg, prumbia and afsar at once. Where a passage turns on the difference (a Mishnah listing the gear, a derashah on Balak 23:16), pick a distinct English word per Hebrew word and hold it for the whole passage.
• Bamidbar 23:16, vayasem davar b'fiv: with Rashi and Bamidbar Rabbah 20:20 the davar is a resen, so render "a bit in his mouth" and gloss it as the mouthpiece by which a rider controls a beast; "word" alone loses the image.
• Do not render the zemam group's two senses with one English word. The muzzle is "muzzle"; zomem is "plot" or "scheme"; keep eidim zomemim transliterated, since "conspiring witnesses" is a halachic term of art.
• Zimah in Vayikra is "licentiousness" or "depravity," not "plot," even though Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives it from the plotting sense.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Balak: Muzzled Up," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 12 Tammuz 5783 (2023-07-01): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11006-balak-muzzled-up.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 10:12, 13:7; Bamidbar 23:16 with Rashi and Bamidbar Rabbah 20:20; Vayikra 18:17, 20:14; Devarim 19:19, 25:4; Yeshayahu 30:28, 37:29; Yirmiyahu 51:12; Yechezkel 46:14; Amos 6:11; Zechariah 1:6; Melachim II 19:28; Shmuel II 8:1; Mishlei 26:3; Tehillim 2:2, 32:9, 37:12, 140:9; Iyov 30:11, 41:5; Shir HaShirim 5:2; Eichah 2:17; Radak to Yeshayahu 30:28 and Sefer HaShorashim s.v. רסן and s.v. מתג; Bedersi, Chotam Tochnit; Dr. David J. A. Clines, Dictionary of Classical Hebrew; Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi, Otzar Nirdafim; Ohalei Yehuda; Rav Hirsch to Tehillim 2:2; Mecklenburg and Shadal to Vayikra 18:17; Mishnah Terumos 9:3, Shabbos 5:1, Keilim 11:5, Bava Kamma 7:3, Sanhedrin 6:2, Makkos 1:3 and 1:6; Bava Kamma 17b; Kiddushin 27a-b; Bava Basra 53b; Yevamos 37b; Bereishis Rabbah 41:5, 45:7, 75:9; Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 19:2; Dr. Alexander Kohut on the Greek phorbeia.