action
spying
תור · רגל · מרגלים · תרים · חפר
Bottom line
The two verbs are not interchangeable. Latur is to scout out with an eye for what is good; leragel is to spy out with an eye for what is weak (Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg). Bamidbar calls Moshe's twelve tarim, scouts, throughout, and never meraglim; only Devarim, looking back, uses vayachperu and leragel. A translation that calls them "the spies" in Bamidbar has already decided the parashah's question.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| תור | latur | scout out | looking for the good in a place (Mecklenburg) |
| תרים | tarim | scouts | Moshe's twelve, as Bamidbar names them |
| רגל | leragel | spy out | looking for weakness (Mecklenburg); from regel, the lowest limb |
| מרגלים | meraglim | spies | Yosef's brothers, Yehoshua's two men; never Moshe's twelve |
| חפר | vayachperu | dig up | mining for damning information; kin to cherpah (Mecklenburg) |
Distinctions
latur (תור) and tarim (תרים)
Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg: latur is the search for advantages. Hashem had already promised the Land, so Moshe's errand was not military reconnaissance; it was meant to strengthen the nation's conviction by having them see and report the good of the Land. That is why Bamidbar, describing the mission as it was given, uses only cognates of latur.
leragel (רגל) and meraglim (מרגלים)
The search for vulnerability. Devarim, spoken forty years later, drops the earlier verb: vayachperu lanu es haaretz (Devarim 1:22) and vayeraglu osah (Devarim 1:24). Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg reads vayachperu from chafirah, digging, and ties it to cherpah, disgrace: they mined for what would shame the Land. The root of leragel is regel, the foot, the body's lowest part, which suits a search for a place's lowest features. The noun meraglim never describes Moshe's men in Tanach; it is drawn from the Devarim verb. It does appear of Yosef's brothers, seven times and every time as an accusation (Bereishis 42), and of the two men Yehoshua sent to Yericho to find the city's weak points (Yehoshua 2:1). Midrashic tradition identifies those two as Kalev and Pinchas; another Midrash names Peretz and Zerach.
Rendering guidance
- Bamidbar 13-14: "scout out the Land," "the scouts." Reserve "spies" for where the Hebrew has a cognate of ragel.
- Devarim 1:22-24: "and they dug out the land for us," then "and they spied it out." The shift in verbs is the point of Moshe's retelling and must survive into English.
- Bereishis 42 and Yehoshua 2:1: "spies" is right, and the negative charge is intended in both.
- Trap: English "spy" absorbs both roots, and the traditional name meraglim for Moshe's men pulls a translator toward it even where the Hebrew says tarim. Where a passage quotes both the Bamidbar and the Devarim account, keep "scouts" for the first and "spies" for the second, and let the difference do the work.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Spy versus Spy," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 23 Sivan 5777 (2017-06-17): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/spy-versus-spy; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7302-spy-versus-spy.md. Primary loci: Bamidbar 13-14; Devarim 1:22, 1:24; Bereishis 42; Yehoshua 2:1; Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, HaKtav VeHaKabbalah. The article's opening and closing paragraphs on English "tourist" and on a non-traditional identification of Yehoshua's two men are omitted here. On chafirah see the entries dig-karah-chafirah-chatzivah.md and shame-bushah-klimah-cherpah.md.