wall

Distinctions

Chomah (חומה)

Over 130 appearances, always a wall surrounding a city or a large and important building.

• Rabbi Pappenheim, like Menachem Ibn Saruk, traces it to the two-letter root ח-ם, which he explains as primarily heat: from it milchamah, the culmination of a heated clash of parties, and so, he suggests, perhaps chomah, whose main purpose is to protect a city from warfare; or else because the wall might block cool winds and keep the city warm.
• The Raavan (Rabbi Eliezer ben Nosson, 1090 to 1170) notes that chomah is also related to sight, as the Aramaic ח-מ-ה is seeing (see Targum Yonasan to Shemos 14:31), and Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 49:22) makes a similar point.
• 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 most commentators, Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Ibn Janach among them, render "destroy" without explaining the etymology.
• Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) derives karkar from kir, to destroy a wall and so strip a nation of its protection, comparing shoresh, root, whose verb misharesh means to uproot; thus, Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein concludes, kir can refer both to building a wall and to tearing one down. Rav Hirsch (to Vayikra 19:28, Bamidbar 24:17) and Rabbi Yitzchok of Volozhin's Peh Kadosh (to Bamidbar 24:17) offer comparable explanations.

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. Shur in the sense of seeing belongs here too, since sight, unlike the other senses, can be aimed at one point (Bamidbar 23:9, 24:17; Iyov 35:5). With it go teshurah, a gift for one who greets ("sees") a dignitary; nesher, the eagle that sees far; and sheirus, service, overseeing a master's needs (or, alternatively, straightening out the household or staying straightforward with the master's wishes). 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.
• In line with the latter, Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein notes that shur and chomah both carry the double sense of wall and seeing.
• Rashi to Bereishis 49:22 seems 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 empty ground between them is a kind of no man's land. He adduces the Mishnah (Middos 2:3), which calls the space between the walls of the Har HaBayis and the Temple building the cheil.
• 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 seems unsure whether the cheil stands outside the chomah or inside, and then suggests that perhaps it is not a wall at all but a moat dug outside the chomah.

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-ץ, to partition.
• Rabbi Pappenheim likewise puts it under ח-ץ, dividing in two, with chatzi, chatzos, chutz and cheitz, and theorizes that chayitz is a wall dividing one domain into two, equivalent to the Mishnaic mechitzah (Bava Basra 1:1).
• Rabbi Moshe Zacuto (1625 to 1697, 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). It appears more commonly in the Targumim, rendering kir (Vayikra 1:15, 14:37; Yehoshua 2:15, and more). Rabbi Ernest Klein connects kotel with the Akkadian kutallu, "backside."

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Remembering the Wall," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 25 July 2020.

Cited in the essay: Bereishis 21:15 and 49:22 (Rav Hirsch), 49:6 (Radak), 49:22 (Rashi); Shemos 14:31 with Targum Yonasan; Vayikra 1:15, 14:37, 19:28 (Rav Hirsch), 25:29; Bamidbar 23:9; Bamidbar 24:17 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Janach's and Radak's Sefer HaShorashim, Rav Hirsch and Rabbi Yitzchok of Volozhin's Peh Kadosh; Yehoshua 2:15, 6:20; Shmuel II 22:30; Yirmiyahu 5:10; Yechezkel 13:10, 16:4; Tehillim 18:30; Mishlei 3:8; Iyov 24:11, 35:5, 40:16; Shir HaShirim 2:9; Eichah 2:8; Daniel 5:5; Ezra 5:8; the Targumim; Mishnah Middos 2:3, Bava Basra 1:1, Sheviis 3:8 with Rabbi Moshe Zacuto's Kol HaRamaz; Pesachim 86a with Rashi; Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino, Ohel Moed; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo (א:ג,א), and Cheshek Shlomo s.v. חל, חם, חץ, קר, שר; Menachem Ibn Saruk; the Raavan; Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, HaKsav VeHaKabbalah; Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras, Ohalei Yehuda; Radak; Rabbi Ernest Klein.