emotion
trembling
רעדה · זיע · זעוה · רתת · רטט · רעש
Bottom line
Ra'adah is trembling, the deep shake of fear. Ziyah is a shudder, a quiver felt rather than seen, and the Targum's word for both vayecherad and ra'ash. Retet is the lighter tremble (Wertheimer). Ra'ash is quaking or tumult, vigorous movement of any kind. Rogez is agitation, physical in Hebrew and angry in Aramaic. Yoma 4b strings four together and Shmuel II 22:8 puts three in one pasuk, so a translator needs distinct English words, not one repeated.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| רעדה | ra'adah | trembling | felt inside, unseen (Wertheimer), or inner fear breaking out (Malbim) |
| זיע | ziyah | shuddering | anxiety from outside; a harp string's quiver (Pappenheim) |
| רתת | retet | trembling, lighter | lighter than ra'adah and chil (Wertheimer) |
| רעש | ra'ash | quaking, tumult | vigorous movement of any kind; an earthquake; later, noise |
| רגז | rogez | agitation; anger | trembling extended to any agitation (Shadal); anger in Aramaic (Rashbam) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether ra'adah is visible. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer: ra'adah is felt within the body and not discernible to an onlooker (Daniel 10:11), against chil, which can be seen. Malbim: ra'adah is precisely where inner fear grows so full that it shows itself in tremors. Either way, render it "trembling."
Retet with a tav and retet with a tet. Each spelling appears once: with a tav in Hoshea 13:1, with a tet in Yirmiyahu 49:24. Radak and Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim) define the tav form as ra'adah, following the Targum, which renders the ra'ad of Shemos 15:15 as reteta; Menachem Ibn Saruk defines it as chil. On the tet form Ibn Janach breaks ranks: it is pain in the joints, not trembling, and Rabbi Pappenheim takes it as a disease of sudden repeated flexing of nerve and muscle. Bedersi (Chotam Tochnit), Rabbi Yosef Kimchi and Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon hold the two spellings are one word; so the Bottom line.
The order of intensity in Shmuel II 22:8 (Tehillim 18:8). Malbim (cited in Sefer HaCarmel, and in his Yair Ohr) reads the pasuk as ascending: ga'ash slightest, ra'ash stronger, rogez strongest. Rabbi Reuven Landau (Degel Machaneh Reuven §61) holds the reverse between the last two. The Bottom line follows Malbim, who works from the pasuk's own sequence.
What ziyah was at Sinai. Onkelos renders vayecherad as ziyah both when the mountain trembled (Shemos 19:18) and when the people trembled (19:16), so the ziyah of Yoma 4b may be either. The Mechilta (BaChodesh §9) reads vayanu'a in Shemos 20:15 as ziyah, which favors the people.
Distinctions
ra'adah (רעדה) and retet (רתת, רטט)
Root ר-ע-ד, nine appearances: ra'ad seizing the mighty of Moav (Shemos 15:15), the land that quivers at Hashem's glance (Tehillim 104:32), and the ra'adah of Tehillim 2:11, which Yoma 4b expounds as the Torah having been given "with dread, with fear, with retet and with ziyah." Retet, for Rabbi Wertheimer, is lighter than ra'adah or chil, and in Chazal it splits: a kohen is disqualified once his hands and feet shake (yirtat) with age, no fear in it (Chullin 24a-24b), while mirtat is fear with no shaking in it.
ziyah (זיע) and its family
Rabbi Pappenheim's biliteral ז-ע, movement triggered by anxiety, its measure the quiver of a harp string held tight, felt by touch and not seen. From it: za, as Mordechai neither rose nor stirred before Haman (Esther 5:9); zeiyah, sweat (Bereishis 3:19), which is why the two are often confused in quoting Yoma 4b; za'avah in the tochachah (Devarim 28:25), which Onkelos renders ziyah and Rashi glosses as shaking in fear; zava'ah, an earthquake (Berachos 54a).
ra'ash (רעש), ga'ash (געש), rogez (רגז), chareid (חרד)
Ra'ash is absent from Chumash but appears close to fifty times after it, and covers vigorous movement generally: the earthquake in Uzziyah's day is simply "the ra'ash" (Amos 1:1). Targum Yonasan and Devarim Rabbah 11:10 render the kol ra'ash gadol of Yechezkel 3:12 as ziyah, which is how it entered U'va L'Tzion. Ga'ash appears nine times, and is also a place name. Rogez: Shadal (to Bereishis 45:24) makes the physical trembling primary and the emotional sense derived, as in lev ragaz (Devarim 28:65); Rashbam there notes that biblical Aramaic uses it for anger, whence b'rogez racheim tizkor.
Rendering guidance
- Yoma 4b's list: give each term its own English. "With dread, with fear, with trembling and with shuddering" keeps four; repeating one word loses the drashah. In Shmuel II 22:8, three verbs, three words, ascending per Malbim.
- Trap: English "shaking" absorbs ra'adah, retet, ra'ash and rogez at once. Reserve "quake" for ra'ash, "shudder" for ziyah, "tremble" for ra'adah and retet, and let rogez take "agitation" by context.
- רגז in Aramaic or a tefillah: "anger"; in a Hebrew pasuk, "trembling."
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Yom Kippur: Shake & Quake (Pt. 2/3)," 10 Tishrei 5785 (2024-10-12), and "Sukkot: Shake & Quake (Pt. 3/3)," 17 Tishrei 5785 (2024-10-19), What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach; raw texts in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11526-yom-kippur-shake-quake-pt-23.md and .../11527-sukkot-shake-quake-pt-33.md. Part 1 of the series is covered in the entry on chil, dachil and zachal. Primary loci: Bereishis 3:19, 27:33, 45:24; Shemos 15:15, 19:16, 19:18, 20:15; Devarim 28:25, 28:65; Shmuel II 22:8; Yirmiyahu 15:4, 49:24; Yechezkel 3:12; Hoshea 13:1; Amos 1:1; Chavakuk 3:2; Tehillim 2:11, 18:8, 104:32; Daniel 10:11; Yoma 4b; Berachos 54a; Chullin 24a-24b; Mechilta BaChodesh §9. A concordance count and comparisons to Christian sects are omitted.