time
second month
זו · זיו · אייר · אויר
Bottom line
The Torah numbers the months rather than naming them (Ibn Ezra to Devarim 16:1), so the second month is "the second month." Where Tanach does name it, it is Ziv (Melachim I 6:1, 6:37), a word meaning radiance, and specifically radiance as something given off rather than the source itself (Rabbi Moshe Shapiro). Iyar is the name in use since Bavel and appears nowhere in Tanach. The practical point a translator or scribe must not miss: how to spell Iyar, with one yud or two, is an unsettled halachic question in a get, and the poskim conclude for two.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| זו | Ziv | Ziv | the Biblical month-name; written defective, though the Aramaic noun is written plene (Radak) |
| זיו | ziv | radiance, splendor | the emanation, not the luminary: Onkelos to Shemos 34:29, Targum Yonasan to Yeshayahu 6:3 (Rabbi Moshe Shapiro) |
| אייר | Iyar | Iyar | post-Biblical, from the Babylonian calendar by prophetic revelation (Yerushalmi Rosh HaShanah 1:2) |
| אויר | avir | air | the connection Sefer HaKushyos proposes for the name Iyar |
Where the authorities disagree
Why the second month is called Ziv. The Gemara (Rosh HaShanah 10b-11a) ties this to the machlokes over when the Avos were born. All agree Yitzchak was born in Nissan; Rabbi Eliezer holds Avraham and Yaakov were born in Tishrei, Rabbi Yehoshua in Nissan.
- The splendor of the trees. Rabbi Eliezer: the month is called Ziv for the radiance of the trees, which begin to blossom then. The Yerushalmi (Rosh HaShanah 1:2) says the same, that the flora have budded and become recognizable.
- The splendor of the Avos. Rabbi Yehoshua: Ziv points to the birth of the zivsanei olam, the radiant ones of the world, the Avos. Since on his view they were born in Nissan, Rashi answers the obvious difficulty: by the time the second month comes around, the fathers born in the month before are already born, and the second month carries their light.
Both are in the Gemara and neither is rejected. The article's own reading joins them through Rabbi Moshe Shapiro's sense of ziv: Nissan is the month of nissim, the light itself; Iyar is what continues to shine from it, which is why one who missed the korban Pesach in Nissan can bring Pesach Sheini in the second month (Bamidbar 9:11), and why the buds are the tree's radiance without being the trunk.
The root of Ziv. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim): the root is ז-י-ו, even though the month-name is never written with a yud in Tanach, while the ordinary Aramaic word for radiance in Daniel (2:31, 4:33, 5:6, 5:9-10, 7:28) always is. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo): the root is the two-letter ז-ו, which also yields zavis, a corner, and the month is Ziv because in it the sun turns a corner into a new season.
How to spell Iyar in a get. Because the name is not in Tanach there is no settled orthography, and the question is whether it takes two yuds (אייר) or one (איר). The oldest vocalized manuscripts of the Mishnah (Rosh HaShanah 1:3) have two; many printed editions, and Ein Yaakov to Rosh HaShanah 18a, have one. Maharil (responsa 189), Terumas HaDeshen 233, Rabbi Yaakov Margolis (Seder HaGet 17 and 19), Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 126:23), and Rema (Even HaEzer 126:7) all conclude that one should write two yuds, while acknowledging that some wrote one; Maharil himself brought a proof for one yud from the text of Targum Yonasan he had, and Rabbi Margolis notes that our texts of that Targum always have two. Nachalas Shivah rules for two yuds, both from Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 9:11, which names the second month Iyar with two, and from the allusion he found in Yalkut Chadash in the name of Megaleh Amukos 121, that Iyar is an acronym for Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and Rochel, the Merkavah of Hashem; Beis Shmuel (Even HaEzer 126:20) cites the same. Rema records that on account of this doubt many batei din have the practice of not writing gittin during Iyar at all (see Aruch HaShulchan, Even HaEzer 126:15). The Bottom line follows the poskim: two yuds.
What Iyar means. Sefer HaKushyos, by a talmid of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, gives two accounts, both from avir, air: the month's weather is air that is neither too hot nor too cold, or else the world was left hanging in the air from creation until Israel accepted the Torah in Sivan (Shabbos 88a), so the month before Sivan is named for air. Rabbi Yosef Kara (to Melachim I 8:2) and the Maharal (Chiddushei Aggados to Yevamos 62b) tie the name Ziv to that same temperate weather. Rabbi Eliezer Hagar of Vizhnitz (Damesek Eliezer to Vayikra 9:22) connects the one-yud spelling to ya'er of Birkas Kohanim (Bamidbar 6:25), an exact anagram of it.
Distinctions
Ziv (זו) and ziv (זיו)
The name appears twice, both in the account of Shlomo HaMelech building the Beis HaMikdash: "in the month of Ziv, which is the second month" (Melachim I 6:1), and "in the fourth year the House of Hashem was founded, in the month of Ziv" (6:37). The common noun ziv, radiance, occurs six times in the Aramaic of Daniel. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro fixes its sense from the Targumim: Onkelos renders the rays of glory from Moshe's face (Shemos 34:29) with ziv, and Targum Yonasan renders the glory of Hashem filling all creation (Yeshayahu 6:3) with ziv. So ziv is the outward spread of something, light or honor, not the thing itself. The Levites' Shabbos Mussaf song was Haazinu (Devarim 32:1-43), divided over successive weeks by the mnemonic haziv lach (Rosh HaShanah 31a); Maharsha explains that singing it on the day of the week Moshe died is a declaration of his ziv, the light of his teaching still shining after him.
Iyar (אייר)
Not in Tanach. The names of all the months now in use came up from Bavel, by prophetic revelation according to the Yerushalmi (Rosh HaShanah 1:2) and pseudo-Rashi to Bereishis Rabbah 48:9. It appears in the Mishnah (Rosh HaShanah 1:3) and in Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 9:11. Beyond the avir readings above, three acronyms are attached to it: Megaleh Amukos, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Rochel; Rabbi Shimshon of Ostropoli, on Tehillim 6:11, whose last four words open with the letters of Iyar spelled with two yuds; and the Chasam Sofer (to Shabbos 147b), on "I will not place upon you all the illness of Egypt, for I am Hashem your Healer" (Shemos 15:26), whose last three words give Iyar with one yud. Rabbi Mordechai Nachman Aronovsky reads the pair together: in Iyar Hashem brings down Israel's enemies and spares Israel itself, and he cites Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 5 that the war with Amalek fell in Iyar. In the name of Rabbi Dovid Jungreis he adds that the last eight words of Tehillim 6:11 spell yom kaf Iyar, the twentieth of Iyar, the day Israel set out from Har Sinai (Bamidbar 10:11), when Moshe would say "Arise, Hashem, and let Your enemies be scattered" (Bamidbar 10:35).
Rendering guidance
- Render the Biblical name as "Ziv," with "the second month" in apposition where the pasuk itself supplies it, and keep "radiance" for the common noun.
- Trap: English "splendor" or "glory" will absorb ziv into hod and kavod. On Rabbi Moshe Shapiro's reading ziv is specifically the emanation from a source, so "radiance" is the safer word; reserve "glory" for kavod, which is what ziv is the radiance of in Yeshayahu 6:3.
- In a get, the month is written, not translated, and the spelling is the poskim's question, not the translator's. Two yuds is the ruling; note the minhag of some batei din to avoid Iyar altogether.
- Do not write "Iyar" into a translation of a pasuk that says "the second month"; the identification belongs in a note, since the name is post-Biblical.
- Where a derashah turns on the letters of Iyar, give the Hebrew, since no English can carry an acronym on a Hebrew name.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "The Shiny Month," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 17 Iyar 5784 (2024-05-25), written in memory of the author's grandfather: raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11411-the-shiny-month.md. Primary loci the article cites: Shemos 15:26, 34:29; Vayikra 9:22; Bamidbar 6:25, 9:11, 10:11, 10:35; Devarim 16:1, 32:1-43; Melachim I 6:1, 6:37, 8:2; Yeshayahu 6:3; Tehillim 6:11; Daniel 2:31, 4:33, 5:6, 5:9-10, 7:28; Rosh HaShanah 10b-11a, 18a, 31a; Shabbos 88a, 147b; Yevamos 62b; Yerushalmi Rosh HaShanah 1:2; Mishnah Rosh HaShanah 1:3; Bereishis Rabbah 48:9; Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 5; Shulchan Aruch and Rema, Even HaEzer 126:7 and 126:23, with Beis Shmuel 126:20 and Aruch HaShulchan 126:15. The article refers back to a Zohar on this month as the source of radiance in the world, but the published text never quotes it, so nothing is attributed to the Zohar here. The Phoenician and Canaanite month-name theory, the Akkadian ayyaru, the Greek source of avir, and the database check on the acronym in Tehillim 6:11 are omitted under the Orthodox-sources rule.