action
stoning
סקילה · רגימה · מרגמה · רגם
Bottom line
Both mean stoning, and Targum collapses them (it renders sekilah as regimah every time), so the difference has to be carried by the English. Sekilah names the act of throwing stones and does not by itself mean the man died, which is why the Torah adds mos yumas alongside it; render it stoning or pelting with stones. Regimah names the outcome, a man buried and subdued under a heap thrown by the whole community; render it stoning to death. The same root ס-ק-ל also means clearing a field of stones, the exact opposite use of stones, so context alone decides.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| סקילה | sekilah | stoning, pelting | the act of throwing; not necessarily fatal, hence the added "he shall be put to death" (Yashar); could in theory be done with one stone by one man (Shapira-Frankfurter) |
| סקל | sakel | clear of stones | the same root used in reverse, removing stones from a field or road (Yeshayahu 5:2, 62:10) |
| רגימה | regimah | stoning to death | the result: subdued and immobilized (Pappenheim); a heap thrown by "the whole congregation" (Shapira-Frankfurter) |
| מרגמה | margeimah | sling, catapult | the launching device (Mishlei 26:8) |
Where the authorities disagree
Which word is the act and which the result. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: sekilah is the throwing, regimah the state of the one stoned, subdued and immobile. Yashar (Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Reggio, cited in HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Vayikra 24:16) says the same in other terms: sekilah is stoning with no implication of death, regimah is stoning to death. Sefer HaChachmah (ascribed to Rabbi Elazar Rokeach of Worms) reverses them: regimah is the throwing, sekilah the resulting pile of stones. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter locates the difference in scale: sekilah is a means to killing and could be done with a single stone, while regimah means heaping stone on stone even on a man already dead, which is why the sources that use it say the whole nation did it. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi (Otzar Nirdafim) attempts a distinction and concedes he cannot draw a line that holds in usage. The Bottom line follows Pappenheim and Yashar, whose reading is confirmed by the Torah's habit of adding "he shall be put to death" to sekilah and not to regimah.
Why Yehoshua 7:25 uses both on Achan. Rashi (with Targum and Radak there): Achan took regimah, his animals sekilah. Yashar: both fell on Achan, first regimah, which killed him, then sekilah on his remains, to disgrace him.
Whether the two senses of ס-ק-ל are one root. Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) lists stoning and clearing as separate entries. Ibn Janach and Radak (each in Sefer HaShorashim) treat them as one root carrying opposite senses, using stones and getting rid of them. Pappenheim bridges them: both are throwing stones, at a man or away from a field. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg takes the clearing sense as a metathesis of Mishnaic ס-ל-ק, to remove. Tedeschi finds the common core in amassing a quantity of stones.
Distinctions
sekilah (סקילה)
Twenty occurrences in the sense of stoning: for approaching Har Sinai (Shemos 19:13), the goring ox (Shemos 21:28-32), the idolater (Devarim 17:5) and the meisis (Devarim 13:11), the betrothed naarah and her paramour (Devarim 22:21, 22:24). It is also the word where nobody dies: Dovid HaMelech feared being stoned (Shmuel I 30:6) and was in fact stoned by Shimi ben Geira and survived (Shmuel II 16:6, 16:13). Fatal instances: Achan (Yehoshua 7:25) and Navos (Melachim I 21:10-15; the article prints 23:10-15). Twice the root means the reverse, clearing stones away: Yeshayahu 62:10 and the vineyard mashal of Yeshayahu 5:2, a usage that carries into Mishnah Shevi'is 2:3 and 3:7.
regimah (רגימה)
Sixteen occurrences, all fatal stoning: the megadef of Vayikra 24:10-23 (four times), the mekoshesh (Bamidbar 15:35-36), one who gives his child to Molech (Vayikra 20:2), one who turns to Ov and Yidoni (Vayikra 20:27), the ben sorer umoreh (Devarim 21:21). What the people wanted to do to Yehoshua and Kalev (Bamidbar 14:10); what they did to Rechavam's tax collector (Melachim I 12:18) and, in Yoash's day, to Zecharia ben Yehoyada (Divrei HaYamim II 24:21); and what Yechezkel foretells for a faithless nation (16:40, 23:47). In Mishnah: the crowd pelting the Tzedoki Kohen with their esrogim at nisuch hamayim (Sukkah 4:9), and Sanhedrin 6:4, where a man who survives the push and the boulder is stoned by all Israel. Pappenheim treats the mem as non-essential and traces it to the biliteral ר-ג, subduing, with harigah and arigah in the same family. Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 26:1) links ר-ג-מ to ר-ק-מ, embroidery, both putting something on top of what is there.
margeimah (מרגמה) and the wider root
Mishlei 26:8: "like binding a stone in a sling, so is one who gives honor to a fool," and Chullin 133a hears the same root in throwing a stone to Merculis. Two Rabbinic words are traced to ר-ג-מ: argaman, purple cloth, which Rabbi Yosef Kimchi derives from the "officer" sense, since only high officials wore it, a view Meiri adopts and Radak cites; and targum, translation (Ezra 4:7), explained variously as transferring a text from place to place, as speech woven like rikmah, or as a metathesis of Aramaic ג-מ-ר, to learn.
Rendering guidance
- Default: sekilah stoning, regimah stoning to death. Where both appear in one pasuk (Yehoshua 7:25) they must read differently in English, or the mefarshim there become unintelligible.
- The trap is "stoning," which absorbs both; and the opposite trap is ס-ק-ל in a field, where Yeshayahu 62:10 means clear it of stones and "stone" inverts the pasuk.
- Where sekilah did not kill (Shmuel II 16:6), write pelted him with stones, not "stoned him," which in English implies death.
- Margeimah (Mishlei 26:8) is a sling, an instrument, not an act. And in a Targum regimah is simply the Aramaic for sekilah (Meturgaman), so do not read into the Aramaic a distinction that the Hebrew carries.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Emor: Getting Stoned," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 15 Iyar 5783 (2023-05-06): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10935-emor-getting-stoned.md. Primary loci cited: Vayikra 20:2, 20:27, 24:10-23; Shemos 17:4, 19:13, 21:28-32, 26:1; Bamidbar 14:10, 15:35-36; Devarim 13:11, 17:5, 21:21, 22:21, 22:24; Yehoshua 7:25; Shmuel I 30:6; Shmuel II 16:6, 16:13; Melachim I 12:18, 21:10-15 (the article prints 23:10-15); Yeshayahu 5:2, 62:10; Yechezkel 16:40, 23:47; Zechariah 7:2, 7:7; Mishlei 26:8; Ezra 4:7; Divrei HaYamim I 2:47; Divrei HaYamim II 24:21; Chullin 133a; Mishnah Sukkah 4:9, Sanhedrin 6:4, Eduyos 5:6, Shevi'is 2:3 and 3:7; Machberes Menachem; Ibn Janach and Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Vayikra 24:16; Otzar Nirdafim; Sefer HaChachmah; Meturgaman. The article's Ugaritic comparison, its Grimm's Law aside on Yiddish taytsh, and Herschberg's claim of a deity named Regem (which the article itself could not substantiate) are omitted under house rule 9.