wall

Distinctions

chomah (חומה)

Over 130 appearances, always a wall surrounding a city or a large and important building. Rabbi Pappenheim (with Menachem Ibn Saruk) traces it to the two-letter root ח-מ, heat: from it milchamah, the heated clash of parties, and so chomah, whose purpose is to shield a city from warfare; or else because the wall blocks the cold winds and keeps the city warm. The Raavan notes that ח-מ-ה in Aramaic is seeing (Targum Yonasan to Shemos 14:31), and Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 49:22) says much the same, so chomah also carries the watching sense. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (HaKsav VeHaKabbalah) connects it to cheimah, anger, and chamah, sun, on the point that a wall sets a city apart from all beyond it; Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 21:15) puts cheimes, a flask, in the same family, since it encloses and protects what is inside it.

kir (קיר)

About 74 appearances as "wall." Most grammarians take the root as ק-י-ר; some drop the yud. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Ohalei Yehuda) links kir to kor/kar, cold, a wall that gives shade to cool off under. Rabbi Pappenheim works from the two-letter ק-ר, the strong impact of weight or velocity: korah, a beam, and tikrah, a ceiling, whose horizontal timbers press down on the supports beneath. On that reading kir is originally the upright beam that bears a structure's weight, and only then any wall of stone or metal. The root also destroys: Bilaam foretells that Yisrael will karkar the nations (Bamidbar 24:17), which Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Ibn Janach render "destroy" without explaining how. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) derives karkar from kir, to tear down a wall and so strip a nation of its protection, comparing shoresh, root, whose verb misharesh means to uproot; one root thus carries both building and demolishing. Rav Hirsch (to Vayikra 19:28, Bamidbar 24:17) and Peh Kadosh of Rabbi Yitzchok of Volozhin explain similarly.

shur (שור)

Rare in Hebrew (Bereishis 49:22; Shmuel II 22:30; Tehillim 18:30; possibly Yirmiyahu 5:10 and Iyov 24:11), but common in the Targumim as shura, rendering chomah (Vayikra 25:29; Yehoshua 2:15, 6:20; Eichah 2:8). Rabbi Pappenheim traces it to ש-ר, a focal point: shar/sharir, the umbilical cord joining a fetus to its mother (Yechezkel 16:4; Mishlei 3:8; Iyov 40:16); shor, an ox, whose strength sits in its midsection; shoresh, the focal point of a plant's growth; yashar, the shortest way to a point; shir, a composition holding to one theme. Sight belongs here too, since it alone can be aimed at one point, and with it teshurah, nesher and sheirus. For shur as "wall" he offers two links: a wall built in a straight line (yashar), as against a chomah that encircles; or a tall wall used as a lookout, from shur as seeing. Rabbi Ernest Klein observes that shur and chomah both carry the double sense of wall and seeing. Rashi to Bereishis 49:22 is unsure which sense shur has there, and Radak reads shor at Bereishis 49:6 as "wall" like the shur later in the perek.

cheil (חיל)

Rabbi Pappenheim derives it from ח-ל, circular movement and the empty space inside a circle: the cheil is a low wall running outside a taller one, and the cleared ground between them is a kind of no man's land. He brings the Mishnah (Middos 2:3), which so calls the space inside the Har HaBayis wall. Pesachim 86a describes chomah and cheil as shura and bar-shura, a wall and the son of a wall; Rashi takes the chomah as the outer wall and the cheil as a shorter wall within it, the small son beside his large father. Radak is unsure whether the cheil stands outside the chomah or inside, and suggests it may be a moat rather than a wall at all.

chayitz (חיץ)

A single appearance in Tanach, Yechezkel 13:10. Ibn Janach: the yud stands in for a second tzadi, so the root is ח-צ-צ, to partition. Rabbi Pappenheim likewise puts it under ח-צ, dividing in two, with chatzi, chatzos, chutz and cheitz, and takes chayitz as a wall dividing one domain into two, equivalent to the Mishnaic mechitzah (Bava Basra 1:1). Rabbi Moshe Zacuto (Kol HaRamaz to Sheviis 3:8) narrows it: chayitz is a flimsy partition, mechitzah any partition at all.

kotel (כותל)

Three appearances: once in Hebrew (Shir HaShirim 2:9, omed achar kosleinu) and twice in the Aramaic ktal (Daniel 5:5; Ezra 5:8). In the Targumim it is the standard rendering of kir (Vayikra 1:15, 14:37; Yehoshua 2:15).

Rendering guidance

• Chomah: city wall, or rampart where the fortification is the point. Chomos Yerushalayim are the walls of the city, not the walls of a building.
• Kir: wall, plain, of a house or of the mizbeach.
• Cheil: the Cheil, transliterated, in Mikdash contexts, with a gloss the first time (the low outer wall and its cleared space). "Rampart" alone will not carry it.
• Chayitz: partition; mechitzah: mechitzah or divider. Where Rabbi Moshe Zacuto's distinction is live, chayitz is a flimsy partition.
• Kotel: the Kosel for the Western Wall; otherwise plain wall.
• Trap: English "wall" absorbs all six. Pesachim 86a's shura uvar-shura pairs two of them in three words, so render "a wall and a wall's son," keeping the Gemara's image, and gloss which is which.
• Second trap: shur and chomah both mean "wall" and "see," so a pasuk using either may not be about masonry at all; Rashi himself hesitates at Bereishis 49:22. (The article gives Bamidbar 24:27 for shur as seeing; that perek has twenty-five pesukim, and the ashurenu loci are 23:9 and 24:17.)

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Remembering the Wall," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 4 Av 5780 (2020-07-25): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/remembering-the-wall, raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8373-remembering-the-wall.md. Loci cited: Bereishis 21:15, 49:6, 49:22; Shemos 14:31 with Targum Yonasan; Vayikra 1:15, 14:37, 19:28, 25:29; Bamidbar 24:17 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Janach, Radak's Sefer HaShorashim, Rav Hirsch and Peh Kadosh; Yehoshua 2:15, 6:20; Shmuel II 22:30; Tehillim 18:30; Yirmiyahu 5:10; Yechezkel 13:10, 16:4; Eichah 2:8; Mishlei 3:8; Iyov 24:11, 40:16; Shir HaShirim 2:9; Daniel 5:5; Ezra 5:8; Mishnah Middos 2:3, Bava Basra 1:1, Sheviis 3:8 with Kol HaRamaz; Pesachim 86a with Rashi; Ohel Moed; Ohalei Yehuda; HaKsav VeHaKabbalah; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim on the two-letter roots. Rabbi Ernest Klein's Akkadian comparison for kotel is omitted under house rule 9.