society
princess
At a glance
In short
Sarai, with its final yud, reads as "my princess," a princess of her own house and nation; Sarah is "princess" without limit, over the whole world (Berachos 13a, Rashi to Bereishis 17:15). Yiscah is a third name an ancient tradition identifies with her (Megillah 14a, Sanhedrin 69b), read either as the one who gazed with ruach hakodesh or the one all gazed upon for her beauty; Rashi adds a third sense, nesichah, princess again. Ibn Ezra and Shadal are skeptical of the identification.
Distinctions
Sar (שר) and serarah (שררה)
The base word: prince, officer, minister. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo) traces it, sin and samech interchanging, to the two-letter ס-ר, removal, and to its branch asirah, imprisonment, which removes a man's freedom to move; a sar is so called because his authority limits how those under him may move and act. The abstract noun serarah, rulership, is the word Philo and Rashi use in explaining the name Sarah.
Sarai (שרי)
Her name for five and a half chapters of Bereishis, seventeen times from Bereishis 11:29 until Bereishis 17:15.
- Berachos 13a (with Tosefta Berachos 1:14 and Bereishis Rabbah 47:1): Sarai means she was a princess to her own nation.
- Rashi (to Berachos 13a and Bereishis 17:15): the final yud carries the sense of the first-person possessive, "my princess," and that is what limits her.
- Maharal (Tiferes Yisrael ch. 49): the yud is orthographically the smallest letter, so ending a name in it implies diminution and limitation, while the final hei of Sarah implies expansion and growth.
- In the Septuagint the name runs Sara and then Sarra, and Philo of Alexandria reads that change the same way, from Avraham's personal princess to a princess in general, the later name relating to serarah, not unlike the Gemara's derashah.
- Abarbanel offers a similar reading: her parents named her Sarai for her destiny as the lady of one special man, and Hashem renamed her to stress her specialness in her own right. Likewise Rabbi Shlomo Astruc: mistress of her own household, then mistress of the world.
- Maharsha (to Berachos 13a) reads it as duration rather than extent: as Sarai her standing would end with her life, having no child to carry it, while Sarah was destined to bear Yitzchak and so to rule past her own lifetime.
- Rabbi David Luria, on Bereishis Rabbah 47:1, reads "do not call her name Sarai" as "do not think it is you who confer the name," that is, her prominence is not derived from being Avraham's wife; her husband is crowned by her, not she by him.
Sarah (שרה)
Her name thirty-eight times through the rest of Bereishis, and once more in all of Tanach, at Yeshayahu 51:2.
- On the yud that was taken away, two traditions (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 2:6, Sanhedrin 107a, Bereishis Rabbah 47:1): that the yud (ten) was halved into two heis (five each), one going to Avram to make Avraham and one to Sarai to make Sarah; and that the yud protested its removal and was answered by being set at the head of Hoshea's name to make Yehoshua (Bamidbar 13:16), moving from last letter of a righteous woman's name to first letter of a righteous man's.
- Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto (to Bereishis 17:15) sets the change in the pattern of a commoner given a new name on rising to greatness: Yosef to Tzafnas Paneach (Bereishis 41:45), Hoshea to Yehoshua (Bamidbar 13:16), Matanyahu to Tzidkiyahu (Melachim II 24:17), Daniel, Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah renamed by Nevuchadnetzar at Daniel 1:7. He also suggests that the added hei signifies femininity and was given to both names as a sign of fertility and procreation, as Kli Yakar there explains similarly.
Shadal further writes that the name Sarah is related to an Arabic word shara, which apparently means having many children. Rabbi Yosef Kerman and Rabbi Shaul Goldman are unsure which Arabic word Shadal meant. Rabbi Goldman suggests zara, sowed, seeded, planted, or dhara, grain, seed, produce, but then wonders why Shadal reached for Arabic at all when the Hebrew zera, seed or offspring, would have made the same point. Rabbi Goldman observes that the root ז-ר-ע behind zera may be seen as related to ש-ר-ה, the letters of the name Sarah, since sin interchanges with zayin and hei with ayin. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 17:15) does compare ש-ר-ה with ז-ר-ע, and reads the change as her passing from an isolated figure to one embodying moral leadership for all, a role each daughter of Yisrael is seen as aspiring to emulate.
Yiscah (יסכה)
Named once only, Bereishis 11:29, as a daughter of Haran, and never mentioned again in Tanach. An ancient tradition preserved in Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 2, Megillah 14a, Sanhedrin 69b and Targum Yonasan, and by Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, Book I ch. 6), identifies her with Sarai. Rabbeinu Nissim proves it from the pasuk's shape: the Torah gives Milkah's paternity but not Sarai's, which is only reasonable if Sarai is the Yiscah whose father the pasuk has just named. Baal HaTurim, Peirush HaRokeach and Rabbeinu Efrayim bar Shimshon (to Bereishis 11:29) find it in At-Bash: שרה becomes בגצ, whose gematria matches יסכה, ninety-five. Ibn Ezra and Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto (to Bereishis 11:29) doubt the identification.
- On the name itself, the Gemara gives two readings, both seemingly from ס-כ-ה, to gaze in Rabbinic Hebrew (a root Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur's Meturgeman shows the Targumim using to render habatah, hashkafah, tzofeh, shur and hover): she gazed (sachta) with ruach hakodesh, or all gazed (sachin) at her beauty.
- Dr. Alexander Kohut (Aruch HaShalem) likewise connects that root to the Gemara's derashah, and theorizes further that it may perhaps be of Indo-European stock, related to the German schauen, to look, the Sanskrit sku and the English see.
- Rabbi Avraham Abba Herczl (Sifsei Chachamim to Megillah 14a, a different work from Rabbi Shabsai Bass's supercommentary of the same name) seems to follow the same line but takes the root as ס-כ-ל, of histakel; he then suggests that perhaps the Gemara meant sukkah, a hut or covering, for her extreme modesty in covering over her prophetic level rather than showing it off, and that perhaps its second reading means that people spoke (sichah, with a ches) of her superlative beauty rather than stared at it.
- Rashi (to Bereishis 11:29) adds a further sense: Yiscah from nesichah, princess, as Sarah is from serarah; Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra Eim LaMesores) and Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Eim LaBinah there) argue from that very affinity of meaning that one woman bore both names, and see Rabbi Shabsai Bass's Sifsei Chachamim on why Rashi felt the need to add a sense the Gemara does not give.
- Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad (Ben Yehoyada to Sanhedrin 69b, Benayahu to Megillah 14a) joins the Gemara's two: in her youth the name marked her beauty, and in maturity it emerged as marking her nevuah; the Torah otherwise avoids the name because, for all its positive sense, it also somewhat implies an undue focus on outward beauty, against the ideals of tznius, and might give the reader the wrong impression of her.
- Rabbi Aharon Marcus (Keses HaSofer to Bereishis 11:29) notes that having more than one name, often one from childhood and another taken on after marriage, is a well-attested phenomenon in the Ancient Near East, so Yiscah was her childhood name, Sarai her name from her marriage, and Sarah the name Hashem gave her in her late eighties.
- Rabbi Moshe Sofer, the Chasam Sofer (Toras Moshe to Bereishis 23:5): Yiscah was her Aramaic name, Sarai and Sarah her Hebrew one.
The name in English
- The English Jessica, which first appears in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice as the name of Shylock's daughter, is generally understood by onomasts as an Anglicization of Yiscah.
- Professor Grant W. Smith of Eastern Washington University argues otherwise, that the name comes from falconry: "jess strings" are the straps tethering a falcon's legs to its master, from the Old French gesse and ultimately the Latin jactus, throw or cast, and the -ica is a Latin feminine nominative ending as in Judaica and Hebraica, so that Shakespeare, who apparently referred to falconry often, coined the name for a girl who feels trapped under her father's control.
Rabbi Klein allows that as an intriguing layer of wordplay but maintains the simpler derivation from Yiscah, since English Bibles before Shakespeare already rendered the name "Jescha" (Wycliffe) and "Jisca" (Coverdale), and since, as scholars have noted, other obscure names in the play come from Bereishis as well, Shylock having been argued to come from Shelach (Bereishis 10:24), and Tuball and Chus from other names there.
The name Sarah has produced a long line of derivatives: the given names Sari, Suri, Szori, Sarolta, Zara, Serita and Serl; the English Sadie, which began as a nickname for Sarah, the "sar-" sound softening to "sad-" with an endearing "-ie"; and Sally, which seems to derive from Sarah too, likely on the English pattern of swapping r for l in diminutives, as Harry gives Hal, Mary Molly, and Dorothy Dolly. Several Jewish surnames look related as well, Shore, Sirkes, Sharlin and Sarles. (Rabbi Klein recalls a girl in his grade at Emek Hebrew Academy named Sara Sarles.) Some have argued that the Hungarian surname Soros might belong here too, while others tie it instead to Schorsch, a Germanized form of George.
Also discussed in
- Leprosyזרע / zera (ז-ר-ע)
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
נ-ס-ך
To cover, and a מַסֵּכָה is a covering. To pour or to cast, as a libation is poured and an idol cast. And in a third sense, to install a ruler.
Covering over
כִּי נָסַךְ עֲלֵיכֶם, for Hashem has spread over you, רוּחַ תַּרְדֵּמָה, a spirit of deep sleep (Yeshayahu 29:10); וְהַמַּסֵּכָה הַנְּסוּכָה (Yeshayahu 25:7), the covering that is spread over; and וְהַמַּסֵּכָה צָרָה כְּהִתְכַּנֵּֽס (Yeshayahu 28:20), and the covering is too narrow to gather oneself in. All of these, he says, are hiding and covering. הַמַּסֵּכָה and הַמַּסָּכֶת (Shoftim 16:14) he takes as the name of the cloth spread over a bed. The pasuk says אֶת־הַיְתַד הָאֶרֶג וְאֶת־ הַמַּסָּֽכֶת, the pin of the weaving and the cloth, he explains, because the pin was still with the cloth at the place where they were weaving it, and the whole of it was pulled away.
The idol, overlaid or cast
הַפֶּסֶל נָסַךְ חָרָשׁ (Yeshayahu 40:19), the craftsman overlaid the image, and כִּי שֶׁקֶר נִסְכּוֹ (Yirmiyahu 10:14), his overlaid idol is a falsehood, may be read from the covering sense, he says, because they made the image of wood and overlaid it with gold and silver. Under pouring and casting, נִסְכּוֹ is a molten image, as in מִֽי־יָצַר אֵל וּפֶסֶל נָסָךְ (Yeshayahu 44:10), who fashioned a god or cast an image, and פֶּסֶל וּמַסֵּכָה (Nachum 1:14), a carved image and a molten one.
The tubes over the lechem
וְאֵת קְשׂוֹת הַנָּסֶךְ (Bamidbar 4:7) he explains as the tubes with which it is covered: they were like hollow half reeds set over each loaf so that air should pass between them and the bread not go mouldy, and so the tubes were a cover over the bread.
Pouring and casting
וְנֵסֶךְ לֹא תִסְּכוּ עָלָיו (Shemos 30:9), you shall pour no libation upon it, and וְהִסִּכוּ נְסָכִים (Yirmiyahu 32:29), and they poured libations. All of these, he says, are pouring and melting.
Installing a prince
וַאֲנִי נָסַכְתִּי מַלְכִּי (Tehillim 2:6), I have installed My king; in the passive, נִסַּכְתִּי מֵרֹאשׁ (Mishlei 8:23), I was installed from the beginning; and נְסִיכֵי סִיחוֹן (Yehoshua 13:21), the princes of Sichon, with which he files וְגַם אֱלֹֽהֵיהֶם עִם־ נְסִֽכֵיהֶם עִם־כְּלֵי חֶמְדָּתָם (Daniel 11:8), their gods too, with their princes, with their precious vessels. All of these, he says, are greatness, rule and princedom. He allows that וְלִנְסֹךְ מַסֵּכָה וְלֹא רוּחִי (Yeshayahu 30:1) may be read in this sense too, to install rulers, and not by My spirit: they set rulers over themselves without His leave, seeking help from Pharaoh. It may also be read in the first sense, to spread a covering, as a figure for taking counsel.
כִּֽי־נָסַךְ עֲלֵיכֶם י"י רוּחַ תַּרְדֵּמָה (ישעיה כט, י), וְהַמַּסֵּכָה הַנְּסוּכָה (ישעיה כה, ז). וְהַמַּסֵּכָה צָרָה כְּהִתְכַּנֵּֽס (ישעיה כח, כ), אֶת־הַיְתַד הָאֶרֶג וְאֶת־הַמַּסָּֽכֶת (שופטים טז, יד). וְאֵת קְשׂוֹת הַנָּסֶךְ (במדבר ד, ז), אֲשֶׁר יֻסַּךְ בָּהֵן (שמות לז, יז). ענין כלם ההסתר והכסוי. ויש לפרש כִּי שֶׁקֶר נִסְכּוֹ (ירמיה י, יד), הַפֶּסֶל נָסַךְ חָרָשׁ (ישעיה מ, יט), וּפִסְלִי וְנִסְכִּי צִוָּֽם (ישעיה מח, ה), והדומים להם מזה הענין, כי היו עושים הפסל מעץ ומחפין אותו זהב וכסף. ויש לפרש עוד מזה וְלִנְסֹךְ מַסֵּכָה וְלֹא רוּחִי (ישעיה ל, א), והוא משל על העצה. ופירוש הַמַּסֵּכָה, והַמַּסֶּכֶת הוא שם לבגד שמכסין בהן על המטה. ואמר אֶת־הַיְתַד הָאֶרֶג וְאֶת־הַמַּסָּֽכֶת (שופטים טז, יד), כי עדין היתד המסכת במקום שהיו אורגים אותה והכל הסיע. ופירוק קשות הַנֶּסֶךְ, הקשות אשר יֻסַּךְ בהם שהיו הקשות כמין חצאי קנים חלולים ומשים אותם על ראש כל לחם ולחם כדי שיכנס הרוח ביניהם כדי שלא יתעפש הלחם, והנה הקשות היו סתר וכסוי ללחם. וענין אחר מִֽי־יָצַר אֵל וּפֶסֶל נָסָךְ (ישעיה מד, י), וּפִסְלִי וְנִסְכִּי (ישעיה מח, ה) כִּי שֶׁקֶר נִסְכּוֹ (ירמיה י, יד), פֶּסֶל וּמַסֵּכָה (נחום א, יד), לֹֽא־יִסְּכוּ לַי"י יַיִן (הושע ט, ד). וְנֵסֶךְ לֹא תִסְּכוּ עָלָֽיו (שמות ל, ט) מהם בשש נקודות ומהם בחמש. וכבר כתבנום בחלק הדקדוק. ומשקל אחר יִשְׁתּוּ יֵין נְסִיכָם (דברים לב, לח) והכבד [הִפְעִיל] וְהִסִּכוּ נְסָכִים (ירמיה לב, כט), הַסֵּךְ נֶסֶךְ שֵׁכָר (במדבר כח, ז), וַיַּסֵּךְ אֹתָם לַֽי"י (שמואל ב' כג, טז). וכבד אחר [פִּעֵל] וַיְנַסֵּךְ אֹתָם לַי"י (דברי הימים א' יא, יח). ענין כלם והדומים להם ענין יציקה והתכה. וענין אחר וַֽאֲנִי נָסַכְתִּי מַלְכִּי (תהלים ב, ו). והנפעל מזה נִסַּכְתִּי מֵרֹאשׁ (משלי ח, כג). והתאר וְגַם אֱלֹֽהֵיהֶם עִם־נְסִֽכֵיהֶם עִם־כְּלֵי חֶמְדָּתָם (דניאל יא, ח), נְסִיכֵי סִיחוֹן (יהושע יג, כא) ענין כלם הגדולה והקצינות והנסיכות. ויש לפרש מזה וְלִנְסֹךְ מַסֵּכָה וְלֹא רוּחִי (ישעיה ל, א), כלומר שמשימים עליהם קצינים שלא ברשותי שהיו מבקשים עזר מפרעה כמו שאמר לָעוֹז בְּמָעוֹז פַּרְעֹה וְלַחְסוֹת בְּצֵל מִצְרָֽיִם (ישעיה ל, ב).
ש-ר-הhis headword שׂרה
שָׂרִיתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִים, you contended with Elokim, and its noun, הַמִּשְׂרָה, dominion. He calls the sense known and does not define it.
The whole entry
וּבְאוֹנוֹ שָׂרָה אֶת־אֱלֹהִים (Hoshea 12:4), in his strength he contended with Elokim, and כִּי־שָׂרִיתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִים (Bereishis 32:29), for you have contended with Elokim; and the noun לְמַרְבֵּה הַמִּשְׂרָה (Yeshayahu 9:6), for the increase of the dominion. He adds only that the sense is known, and does not define it.
Radak’s root שׂרה
וּבְאוֹנוֹ שָׂרָה אֶת־אֱלֹהִֽים (הושע יב, ד), כִּֽי־שָׂרִיתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִים (בראשית לב, כט). והשם לְםַרְבֵּה [לְמַרְבֵּה] הַמִּשְׂרָה (ישעיה ט, ו), ידוע.
שִׁרְיָן, a coat of mail; מִשְׁרַת עֲנָבִים, a steeping of grapes, known from Chazal's usage; and הַשָּׁרוֹן, which has been explained as level land and a fat place.
Disputed words
Rabbi Yehudah put שֵׁרִיתִיךָ לְטוֹב (Yirmiyahu 15:11) under this root, and Rabbi Yonah wrote the same, with the explanation that it is akin to the Aramaic וּמְשָׁרֵא קִטְרִין (Daniel 5:12), and loosing knots, so that on that reading it is I have released you for good. Radak has already written it under another root. His father explains תַּחַת כָּל הַשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׁרֵהוּ (Iyov 37:3), under all the heavens He looses it, from this root, and Radak spells out what that comes to: that He looses the binding of the clouds and rains upon the corners of the earth. The same words are also read from steeping. שָׁרוֹתַיִךְ מַעֲרָבֵךְ (Yechezkel 27:25) Radak has written under another root again, and its sense is given there.
Steeping
וְכָל מִשְׁרַת עֲנָבִים (Bamidbar 6:3), and any steeping of grapes, which he says is known from the words of Chazal: אין שורין דיו וסממנין (Shabbos 1:5), one may not steep ink and dyes, and so they said ולא במי משרה (Berachos 3:5), and not in the water of steeping.
The coat of mail
וַיִּלְבַּשׁ צְדָקָה כַּשִּׁרְיָן (Yeshayahu 59:17), he put on righteousness as a coat of mail, בֵּין הַדְּבָקִים וּבֵין הַשִּׁרְיָן (Melachim I 22:34), between the joints and the mail, and וּמִשְׁקַל הַשִּׁרְיוֹן (Shmuel I 17:5), the weight of the mail. וְשִׁרְיוֹן קַשְׂקַשִּׂים (Shmuel I 17:5), a mail of scales, is one made in the manner of scales. With a heh, חֲנִית מַסָּע וְשִׁרְיָה (Iyov 41:18), spear, dart and coat of mail, the שִׁרְיָה being, he says, the תחרה. The plural, with a cholam, is וְשִׁרְיֹנוֹת וּקְשָׁתוֹת (Divrei HaYamim II 26:14), coats of mail and bows.
The Sharon
חֲבַצֶּלֶת הַשָּׁרוֹן (Shir HaShirim 2:1), the rose of the Sharon, and הָיָה הַשָּׁרוֹן כָּעֲרָבָה (Yeshayahu 33:9), the Sharon has become like a wilderness: it has been explained as a land of level ground and a fat place, and so וְעַל הַבָּקָר הָרֹעִים בַּשָּׁרוֹן (Divrei HaYamim I 27:29), and over the cattle grazing in the Sharon. שִׁרְטַי הַשָּׁרוֹנִי, Shirtai the Sharonite, is a name.
Radak’s root שׁרה
אִם־לֹא שֵֽׁרִותִךָ [שֵֽׁרִיתִיךָ] לְטוֹב (ירמיה טו, יא), כתב רבי יהודה בזה השורש וגם רבי יונה כתבו כן ופירשו שהוא דומה לתרגום וּמְשָׁרֵא קִטְרִין (דניאל ה, יב). וכבר כתבנוהו בשרש שָׁאַר. ואדוני אבי ז"ל פירש מזה תַּֽחַת־כָּל־הַשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׁרֵהוּ (איוב לז, ג), כלומר יתיר קשור העבים וימטיר על כנפות הארץ. שָֽׁרוֹתַיִךְ מַֽעֲרָבֵךְ (יחזקאל כז, כה), כתבנוה בשרש שׁוּר. וַיִּלְבַּשׁ צְדָקָה כַּשִּׁרְיָן (ישעיה נט, יז), בֵּין הַדְּבָקִים וּבֵין הַשִּׁרְיָן (מלכים א' כב, לד). [ובחולם] וּמִשְׁקַל הַשִּׁרְיוֹן (שמואל א' יז, ה). וְשִׁרְיוֹן קַשְׂקַשִּׂים (שם), ופירוש עשוי מעשה קשקשים. ובה"א חֲנִית מַסָּע וְשִׁרְיָֽה (איוב מא, יח), היא התחרה. והקבוץ בחלם וְשִׁרְיֹנוֹת וּקְשָׁתוֹת (דברי הימים ב' כו, יד), אזברג בלע"ז. ומזה השרש עוד וְכָל־מִשְׁרַת עֲנָבִים (במדבר ו, ג), ידוע בדברי רבותינו ז"ל (שבת פרק ראשון משנה ה. דף יז, ע"ב) אין שורין דיו וסממנין. וכן אמרו (ברכות פרק שלישי משנה ה. י דף כב, ע"ב) ולא במי משרה. וכן פירשו מזה תַּֽחַת־כָּל־הַשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׁרֵהוּ (איוב לז, ג). חֲבַצֶּלֶת הַשָּׁרוֹן (שיר השירים ב, א), הָיָה הַשָּׁרוֹן כָּֽעֲרָבָה (ישעיה לג, ט), פירשו בו ארץ מישור ומקום דשן. וכן וְעַל־הַבָּקָר הָֽרֹעִים בַּשָּׁרוֹן (דברי הימים א' כז, כט). שִׁטְרַי [שִׁרְטַי] הַשָּֽׁרוֹנִי שם.
ש-ר-רhis headword שׂרר
To rule and be master; and to make oneself a prince over others.
The whole entry
לִהְיוֹת כָּל־אִישׁ שׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ (Esther 1:22), that every man be master in his own house, and the reflexive כִּֽי־ תִשְׂתָּרֵר עָלֵינוּ גַּם־ הִשְׂתָּרֵֽר (Bamidbar 16:13), that you make yourself a prince over us, a prince indeed. He allows that וַיָּשַׂר אֶל־מַלְאָךְ (Hoshea 12:5), and he was master over an angel, and בִּי שָׂרִים יָשׂרוּ (Mishlei 8:16), by me princes rule, may belong here, though he has already written of them under the root שֹוֹר; but וַיָּשַׂר בַּמְּגֵרָה (Divrei HaYamim I 20:3), and he sawed them with the saw, and אִם־יִתְגַּדֵּל הַמַּשּׂוֹר (Yeshayahu 10:15), shall the saw vaunt itself, he wrote under נָשַֹר, which he says is truly their root.
Radak’s root שׂרר
לִהְיוֹת כָּל־אִישׁ שׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ (אסתר א, כב). וההתפעל כִּֽי־תִשְׂתָּרֵר עָלֵינוּ גַּם־הִשְׂתָּרֵֽר (במדבר טז, יג). ויתכן להיות מזה השרש וַיָּשַׂר אֶל־מַלְאָךְ (הושע יב, ה), בִּי שָׂרִים יָשׂרוּ (משלי ח, טז). וכבר כתבנו אותה בשרש שֹוֹר, אבל וַיָּשַׂר בַּמְּגֵרָה (דברי הימים א, כ, ג) אִם־יִתְגַּדֵּל הַמַּשּׂוֹר (ישעיה י, טו), כתבנום בשרש נָשַֹר כי הוא שרשם באמת.
The navel. In another sense, בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי is the looking of my heart and my thoughts; some explain it as strength.
The navel
שָׁרְרֵךְ אַגַּן הַסַּהַר (Shir HaShirim 7:3), your navel a round goblet; לֹֽא־כָרַּת שָׁרֵךְ (Yechezkel 16:4), your navel was not cut, where the resh takes a dagesh in place of the doubling that is missing; and in another pattern בִּשְׁרִירֵי בִטְנֽוֹ (Iyov 40:16), in the navel of his belly, the word there being the navel.
The other sense
כִּי בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ (Devarim 29:18), for I will go in the looking of my heart, where the sense is the looking of my heart and my thoughts. With it go לְמַעַן שׁוֹרְרָי (Tehillim 5:9), because of those who watch me, and יָשֹׁר עַל־אֲנָשִׁים (Iyov 33:27), he looks upon men, though Radak has written those at the root שׁוּר as well, there being nothing to decide between the two roots. Some explain בִּשְׁרִרוּת as strength, from the sense of שריר וקים, valid and standing, in the words of Chazal (Bava Basra 102a).
Radak’s root שׁרר
שָׁרְרֵךְ אַגַּן הַסַּהַר (שיר השירים ז, ג). לֹֽא־כָרַּת שָׁרֵךְ (יחזקאל טז, ד), בדגש הרי"ש לחסרון הכפל. ובמשקל אחר וְאֹנוֹ בִּשְׁרִירֵי בִטְנֽוֹ (איוב ט, טז), הוא הטבור. וענין אחר כִּי בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ (דברים כט, יח), ענינו הבטת לבי ומחשבותי. וכן לְמַעַן שׁוֹרְרָי הַוְשַׁר [הַיְשַׁר] לְפָנַי דַּרְכֶּֽךָ (תהלים ה, ט), יָשֹׁר עַל־אֲנָשִׁים (איוב לג, כז), ואם כתבנו אותם בשרש שׁוּר מאין הכרע. ויש מפרשים בִּשְׁרִרוּת בחוזק מענין שריר וקים בדברי רבותינו ז"ל (בבא בתרא קב, ע"א).
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Lech Lecha: The Princess' Gaze (Part 1/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 November 2024.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayera: The Princess' Gaze (Part 2/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 16 November 2024.
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 10:24, 11:29, 17:15, 23:5, 41:45; Bamidbar 13:16; Melachim II 24:17; Yeshayahu 51:2; Daniel 1:7; Berachos 13a with Rashi and Maharsha; Tosefta Berachos 1:14; Bereishis Rabbah 47:1 with Rabbi David Luria; Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 2:6; Sanhedrin 69b, 107a; Megillah 14a; Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 2; Targum Yonasan to Bereishis 11:29; Rashi to Bereishis 11:29 and 17:15; Maharal, Tiferes Yisrael ch. 49; Abarbanel; Rabbi Shlomo Astruc; Kli Yakar and Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 17:15; Shadal to Bereishis 11:29 and 17:15; Rabbeinu Nissim; Baal HaTurim, Peirush HaRokeach and Rabbeinu Efrayim bar Shimshon to Bereishis 11:29; Ibn Ezra; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo; the Septuagint; Philo of Alexandria; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book I ch. 6; Dr. Alexander Kohut, Aruch HaShalem; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgeman; Rabbi Avraham Abba Herczl, Sifsei Chachamim to Megillah 14a; Rabbi Shabsai Bass, Sifsei Chachamim; Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra Eim LaMesores; Rabbi Yaakov Emden, Eim LaBinah; Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, Ben Yehoyada to Sanhedrin 69b and Benayahu to Megillah 14a; Rabbi Aharon Marcus, Keses HaSofer to Bereishis 11:29; the Chasam Sofer, Toras Moshe to Bereishis 23:5; Rabbi Yosef Kerman; Rabbi Shaul Goldman; Professor Grant W. Smith; the Wycliffe and Coverdale Bibles.