slaughter

Distinctions

shechitah (שחיטה)

Root ש-ח-ט. Malbim: shechitah names the specific halachic act, cutting the animal's neck through the esophagus and the trachea. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740-1814), cited by Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, reads it wider: shechitah is a general term for any act that causes a living being's death, and halachic slaughtering is one case inside that term, not its whole definition. His two proofs: Chullin 17a rules that for the Noahide "his nechirah (stabbing) is his shechitah," and Moshe warns that the nations will say Hashem "slaughtered them (vayishchatem) in the wilderness" (Bamidbar 14:16), which cannot mean a literal neck-cut but a bringing-about of death.

zevichah (זביחה)

Root ז-ב-ח. Malbim: slaughtering with a stated purpose, whether a ritual korban or meat for a festive gathering. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim narrows it: zevichah is a species of shechitah, killing for the purpose of sacrifice. Ralbag holds two positions in two places: to Devarim 12:21 he says zevichah does not necessarily name the same act as shechitah and can include nechirah (stabbing), which is halachically invalid (see Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 22:40); to Vayikra 1:1 he calls shechitah and zevichah outright synonyms.

tevichah (טביחה)

Root ט-ב-ח. Malbim: killing an animal for food in a general way, outside the frame of ritual slaughter. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim agrees: like zevichah it is a kind of shechitah defined by its reason, here ordinary human consumption. The word is rare in Chumash: u'tevoach tevach at Yosef's banquet (Bereishis 43:16), the thief who slaughters the animal he stole (Shemos 21:37), and the curse "your ox will be slaughtered (tavuach) before your eyes" (Devarim 28:31). Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer (1866-1935) uses the sense to explain the thief: precisely because tevichah means killing to eat, the Torah blocks the excuse that he only wanted the meat and not a profit, and the fourfold or fivefold payment stands.

Rabbi Yonah ibn Janach (990-1050), cited by Wertheimer, dissents on the word entirely: tevichah means cooking (compare Arabic tovech), so Yosef told his steward to cook, not to slaughter. Wertheimer answers that in a wide range of rabbinic sources tevichah plainly means slaughtering. Both senses survive in tabach, which in later Hebrew is a butcher (one who cuts up meat already slaughtered) or a cook; Modern Hebrew mitbach is a kitchen.

tabach (טבח) as a title

Potiphar is sar ha'tabachim (Bereishis 37:36) and Nevuzaradan rav ha'tabachim (Melachim II, Yirmiyahu). Rashi to Bereishis 37:36: Potiphar was in charge of those who slaughtered the king's animals. Ibn Ezra and Ramban follow Targum Onkelos: he was Chief Executioner, or chief warden over those condemned to death, which also fits Nevuzaradan. The link is plain, an executioner slays men as a slaughterer slays beasts. Ibn Ezra to Daniel 2:14 says instead that Potiphar was Pharaoh's Chief Cook, which reads against his own comment on Bereishis.

The article notes a possible sound-link between zevichah and tevichah: the roots share BEIS-CHES, Hebrew zevichah appears in Aramaic as devichah, and dalet interchanges with tes. Hence the dispute in Pesachim 17a over the Mishnah in Eduyos 8:4, whether it speaks of beis mitbachaya (the Mikdash's slaughter-house) or beis midbachaya (its sacrifice house).

Rendering guidance

• u'tevoach tevach (Bereishis 43:16): the cognate accusative wants an English doubling, "slaughter a slaughtering" or, better in a chumash context, "have an animal slaughtered and butchered."
• Trap: "slaughter" absorbs all three. Reserve plain slaughter for shechitah, use sacrifice or slaughter as a korban for zevichah, and butcher or slaughter for food for tevichah.
• Where zevichah and shechitah appear together in one passage, do not flatten them; Ralbag to Devarim 12:21 makes the gap load-bearing (zevichah can take in nechirah, which is not valid shechitah).
• sar ha'tabachim: "chief of the butchers" follows Rashi, "chief executioner" follows Onkelos, Ibn Ezra and Ramban. Pick one and footnote the other; do not write a compromise that says neither.
• nechirah is stabbing, never "slaughtering," even where Chullin 17a calls it the Noahide's shechitah.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Slaughtering and Butchering," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 30 Kislev 5779 (2018-12-08): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8023-slaughtering-and-butchering.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 43:16, 37:36; Shemos 21:37, 22:3; Vayikra 1:1 (Ralbag); Bamidbar 14:16, 22:40 (Targum Yonasan); Devarim 12:21 (Ralbag), 28:31; Daniel 2:14 (Ibn Ezra); Chullin 17a; Pesachim 17a; Eduyos 8:4. The article prints the thief's fourfold and fivefold payment at Ex. 21:37, which is Shemos 21:37 in the Hebrew numbering, and the twofold payment at Ex. 22:3, printed as Shemos 22:3. The article's Arabic cognate for tevichah is reported as Rabbi Yonah ibn Janach's own argument, not adopted here.