refusal

Distinctions

mi'un (מיאון)

Forty-six occurrences. Vayima'en of Edom refusing Yisrael passage (Bamidbar 20:21), of Yaakov refusing to be comforted for Yosef (Bereishis 37:35), of Yosef refusing Potifar's wife (Bereishis 39:8), of Yaakov refusing to put his right hand on Yosef's firstborn (Bereishis 48:19), of Amnon feigning illness by refusing to eat (Shmuel II 13:9), and elsewhere.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives mi'un from ein / ayin, "there is not": one who refuses does not engage with what he has rejected but stubbornly ignores it.

siruv (סירוב)

A hapax at best. Yechezkel 2:6 calls the people saravim and salonim. All agree salonim are thorns; on saravim the Rishonim split. Menachem Ibn Saruk, Rashi and Radak read it as rebels and refusers, and Menachem goes so far as to define meridah by sarvanus and sarvanim by mardus; on their reading this is the only occurrence of ס-ר-ב in Tanach. Donash Ibn Labrat disagrees: saravim is a kind of thorn, parallel to salonim.

Its home is Aramaic. In that same perek Hashem uses forms of meri / meridah six times and Targum renders each with a cognate of siruv; and where Yechezkel 2:3 uses pesha for rebellion, Targum renders it with an Aramaicized meridah. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi, Meturgaman) notes that the Targumim generally render Hebrew meridah, meri and mi'un alike by siruv, which is the ground for treating the two as synonyms sourced in different languages: mi'un native Hebrew, siruv an Aramaic loanword that came into its own in post-biblical Hebrew.

In rabbinic Hebrew sarvan is settled: the Mishnah (Berachos 5:3) rules that a chazan who errs is replaced at once, and warns that the replacement must not be a sarvan. The Rambam and Bartenura: ordinarily one asked to lead should show humility and decline at first, but here, replacing a chazan mid-tefillah, refusing the honor is out of place. One who badgers another and will not let up is misarev (Nedarim 8:7), because he refuses to give up on changing the other's mind (see Tosafos Yom Tov); the form sometimes takes an extra hei, mis'harev, for pestering (Rashi to Bava Kamma 28a, 32b, Chullin 94a).

Where they part

Rabbi Yaakov Dienna, in the early commentary to Targum Onkelos printed as Patshegen (also Tzintzenes HaMan, Sefer HaYair), asks why Onkelos, who normally renders mi'un as siruv, declines to do so at Shemos 22:16, where the seduced girl's father refuses to give her to the seducer: there Onkelos renders it "and if the father does not wish." His answer: the two are not perfect synonyms. Mi'un is refusing to comply with something asked of one; siruv is the outright rejection of a proposition, and is stronger. The father is declaring himself before beis din and before his daughter, so the milder verb suits what he would actually say in public.

The same at Bamidbar 22:13, where Bilaam reports that Hashem me'en to let him go, and Targum again avoids siruv, rendering "there is no will before Hashem to permit." Rabbi Yaakov Dienna: Onkelos held the coarser siruv unfitting when the refusal is Hashem's. (On ma'en against me'en, see Sechel Tov to Shemos 7:27.)

The two technical senses

Mi'un in the Mishnah (Moed Katan 3:3, Yevamos 13:1-6, Bava Metzia 1:8, Sanhedrin 1:3, Chullin 1:7) is the procedure by which a girl married off rabbinically rather than by Torah law, her father having died and her mother or brothers having married her off, refuses her husband and is free to marry another. Siruv is refusing a summons to beis din or refusing to accept its ruling; the man in contempt may face sanctions resembling cherem, and the dayanim may permit the other litigant to take the case to a non-Jewish court.

Rendering guidance

• Default both to "refuse." Since they are the same act in two languages, an invented English contrast will mislead more often than it helps.
• Where a source is arguing the difference (Rabbi Yaakov Dienna on Shemos 22:16 and Bamidbar 22:13), render mi'un "declined" and siruv "flatly refused" or "rejected outright," and say which word is which.
• Trap: English "refuse" absorbs mi'un, siruv, and also meri / meridah, which the Targum renders by siruv but which is rebellion, not refusal. Keep "rebel" for meri even where the Targum uses the refusal word.
• The technical senses are never translated: mi'un of a ketanah and siruv of beis din both stay transliterated, with a gloss at first occurrence. A bare "refusal" for either is a mistranslation, not a simplification.
• Sarvan in Berachos 5:3 is "one who declines," and needs the Rambam and Bartenura's point in a note, that declining is right in the ordinary case and wrong in this one; "refusenik" is a modern joke and does not belong in a sefer.
• Bamidbar 22:13, me'en Hashem: "Hashem has refused to allow me," and if the Targum's phrasing is under discussion, quote it as "there is no will before Hashem," which is the whole point of the question.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Biblical Refuseniks," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 Tammuz 5781 (2021-06-19): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9254-biblical-refuseniks.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 20:21, 22:13; Bereishis 37:35, 39:8, 48:19; Shmuel II 13:9; Shemos 7:27 with Sechel Tov, 22:16; Yechezkel 2:3, 2:6 with Rashi, Radak, Menachem Ibn Saruk and Donash Ibn Labrat; Mishnah Berachos 5:3 with the Rambam and Bartenura, Nedarim 8:7 with Tosafos Yom Tov, Moed Katan 3:3, Yevamos 13:1-6, Bava Metzia 1:8, Sanhedrin 1:3, Chullin 1:7; Rashi to Bava Kamma 28a and 32b and Chullin 94a; Sefer HaTishbi and Meturgaman; Patshegen to Shemos 22:16 and Bamidbar 22:13. The article's closing note on the English -nik suffix is omitted here.