nature
sun
At a glance
In short
Biblical Hebrew has three words for the sun, and Rabbi Aharon Marcus explains that each names it by a different aspect. Shemesh is the sun as servant, doing its assigned work; chamah is the sun as the hot one; cheres is the sun as the baker of pottery, or, as others explain, as the pottery-colored one at sunrise and sunset. Rabbi Marcus adds that the words may also represent different stages in the history of man's relationship with the sun. The three words for the moon, yareach, levanah and sahar, somewhat parallel these three, each naming the moon by a different aspect in the same way.
Distinctions
The sun is unnamed at first
In the account of creation (Bereishis 1) shemesh does not appear. The Torah calls the sun only the great luminary, as if to say that its whole purpose is to give light and that it carries no importance of its own. On Rabbi Aharon Marcus's reading, that is the point: at first the sun had no name at all.
Shemesh (שמש)
The first word coined, and coined against idolatry. When, as the generations progressed, people began to worship the sun under the name Baal, master, early monotheists who fought idolatry coined a name that identifies it yet downplays its importance: shemesh, the servant, highlighting its subservience to Hashem. In time shemesh itself came to be used as the name of the idolatrous sun-god, and archeologists have identified the worship of Shammash in ancient Canaan and Mesopotamia. This is what necessitated the coining of the next words. A place-name reflecting the old practice is still in use: Beis Shemesh, the house of the sun, was apparently an ancient center of the sun cult before the Jewish People entered Eretz Yisrael.
Chamah (חמה) and cheres (חרס)
The second layer: chamah for the sun's scorching heat and cheres for its ability to bake pottery (others: for its reddish, pottery-like hue at sunrise and sunset). In short, shemesh focuses on the sun's utilitarian role in the celestial system, carrying out Hashem's wishes, chamah on its heat, cheres on its connection with pottery. In time these words too, unsurprisingly, came to be associated with celestial idolatry, as worshippers of the sun used ritual objects in their cults: the Torah (Vayikra 26:30) refers to the chaman, an idol erected on a roof to worship the sun.
The Tashbetz (Magen Avos, Jerusalem 2007, p. 223): shemesh serves Hashem, chamah makes things hot, cheres breaks things, as earthenware must be broken, since it can never be fully cleaned.
Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 18:1 and 38:17): yom sometimes means the sun, and in Sanskrit jama means sun.
The parallel with the moon
Rabbi Aharon Marcus reads the three words for the moon the same way, and the two sets somewhat parallel each other. The moon too is called only the small luminary at creation. Its first name, yareach, from orach, a path, was coined in the same fight against idolatry as shemesh, and like shemesh it was later taken up as the name of a god, Yarikh. Its later names, levanah and sahar, name it by its color and its shape, as chamah and cheres name the sun by its heat and its pottery, and they too came to be tied to idolatry, in the saharonim of Yeshayahu 3:18.
Where the authorities disagree
Why the sun is called cheres.
- Rabbi Aharon Marcus: because the sun's heat bakes pottery, and pottery was a mainstay of ancient civilization, so the sun is named for what it makes possible.
- Others: because the sun takes on a reddish, pottery-like hue at sunrise and at sunset, so it is named for how it looks.
Rabbi Klein gives no ground for choosing between them.
Whether the staged history is admissible. Rabbi Aharon Marcus holds that the words may also represent different stages in the history of man's relationship with the sun and moon. Rabbi Klein notes that some might reject this historical aspect of the explanation, because it would seem to contradict the Divine origin of the Hebrew language, and answers that the basic argument still holds: the three words for the sun and the three for the moon somewhat parallel each other in their focus on different aspects of the sun and the moon.
Also discussed in
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
ח-ר-ס
The sun, and from it the eastern gate of the Beis HaMikdash; in another sense the dry scab, named for the potsherd it is scratched with.
The sun
הָֽאֹמֵר לַחֶרֶס וְלֹא יִזְרָח (Iyov 9:7), who tells the sun and it does not rise, and בְּטֶרֶם יָבֹא הַחַרְסָה (Shoftim 14:18), before the sun went in; their sense is the sun. From this the eastern gate of the Beis HaMikdash is called שַׁעַר הַֽחַרְסִות (Yirmiyahu 19:2), the gate of the sun, because it was set facing the rising of the sun.
What Yonasan renders
מִֽלְמַֽעֲלֵה הֶחָֽרֶס (Shoftim 8:13) Yonasan takes from this same sense, rendering it עַד לָא מֵעַל שִׁמְשָׁא, before the sun set.
The dry scab
Another sense: וּבַגָּרָב וּבֶחָרֶס (Devarim 28:27), with the scab and with the cheres. It is the dry scab, called so because it is scratched with a חרס, a potsherd, as it says וַיִּֽקַּֽח־לוֹ חֶרֶשׂ לְהִתְגָּרֵד בּוֹ (Iyov 2:8), he took himself a potsherd to scrape himself with.
הָֽאֹמֵר לַחֶרֶס וְלֹא יִזְרָח (איוב ט, ז), בשש נקודות, בְּטֶרֶם יָבֹא הַחַרְסָה (שופטים יד, יח), ענינם השמש. ומזה נקרא שער המזרחי בבית המקדש שַׁעַר הַֽחַרְסִות [הַֽחַרְסִית] (ירמיה יט, ב), לפי שהיה מכוון כננד זריחת השמש. ויונתן תרגם ממנו מִֽלְמַֽעֲלֵה הֶחָֽרֶס (שופטים ח, יג) עַד לָא מֵעַל שִׁמְשָׁא. וענין אחר וּבַגָּרָב וּבֶחָרֶס (דברים כח, כז). והוא הגרב היבש נקרא הרס לפי שמתחככין אותו בחרס כמו שאמר וַיִּֽקַּֽח־לוֹ חֶרֶשׂ לְהִתְגָּרֵד בּוֹ (איוב ב, ח).
ש-מ-ש
The sun; and שִׁמְשֹׁתַיִךְ, the windows that the sun comes in by.
Sun and moon together
שֶׁמֶשׁ יָרֵחַ עָמַד זְבֻלָה (Chavakuk 3:11), sun and moon stood in their dwelling: שֶׁמֶשׁ is pointed בשש נקודות, with six dots, and the phrase means שמש וירח, the sun and the moon.
The sun
יוֹמָם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ לֹֽא־יַכֶּכָּה (Tehillim 121:6), by day the sun will not strike you; הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ יָצָא עַל־הָאָרֶץ (Bereishis 19:23), the sun had come out over the earth; וְזָרַח הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ (Koheles 1:5), the sun rises; לֹֽא־יָבוֹא עוֹד שִׁמְשֵׁךְ (Yeshayahu 60:20), your sun will set no more; שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה (Malachi 3:20), a sun of righteousness; and לְעֵינֵי הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ הַזֹּֽאת (Shmuel II 12:11), before this sun.
The windows
וְשַׂמְתִּי כַּֽדְכֹד שִׁמְשֹׁתַיִךְ (Yeshayahu 54:12), and I will make your windows of kadkod, which he glosses החלונות שהשמש נכנס בהם, the windows the sun enters by.
שֶׁמֶשׁ יָרֵחַ עָמַד זְבֻלָה (חבקוק ג, יא), בשש נקודות. פירוש שמש וירח. יוֹמָם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ לֹֽא־יַכֶּכָּה (תהלים קכא, ו), הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ יָצָא עַל־הָאָרֶץ (בראשית יט, כג), וְזָרַח הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ (קהלת א, ה), לֹֽא־יָבוֹא עוֹד שִׁמְשֵׁךְ (ישעיה ס, כ), וְזָֽרְחָה לָכֶם יִרְאֵי שְׁמִי שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה (מלאכי ג, כ), לְעֵינֵי הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ הַזֹּֽאת (שמואל ב' יב, יא). וְשַׂמְתִּי כַּֽדְכֹד שִׁמְשֹׁתַיִךְ (ישעיה נד, יב), החלונות שהשמש נכנס בהם.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "My Three Suns (and Moons)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 3 September 2016.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "My Three Suns (and Moons)," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 1; Vayikra 26:30; Yeshayahu 3:18; Rabbi Aharon Marcus; Tashbetz, Magen Avos p. 223; Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 18:1 and 38:17.