war

Distinctions

milchamah (מלחמה), lochem (לוחם)

Root ל-ח-ם, which also yields lechem (bread) and, in some pesukim, meat. Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) lists the senses as separate declensions and draws no link between them. Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim) merges the food senses into one broad "staple food." Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) goes further and ties war to food: the sword of the combatants "eats" the slain. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 3:19, 10:9, 14:2) reads the root as struggle for survival: man struggles against nature for his bread and against his fellow who would take it, and milchamah is that second struggle between parties; he links ל-ח-ם to ל-א-ם (leom, nation), the existential fight of a polity to survive. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo) derives lechem and milchamah instead from the two-letter core ח-ם, heat, alongside cham, cheimah (anger heated up), chamah (the sun), chum, chemah (butter), cheimas (flask), and chami/chamos (parents-in-law, who warm a daughter-in-law with love). Bread is baked by heat, and two sides go to war only once matters have heated to the point of fighting. The Netziv (Haamek Davar to Bamidbar 28:2) connects lechem to halchamah, soldering, since food solders body to soul, and korbanos are called lechem because they cement the bond between Klal Yisrael and Hashem; he does not extend this to milchamah.

krav (קרב)

Root ק-ר-ב, which the classical lexicographers (Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Radak) present as three senses: approaching, innards, and war. The senses shade into one another: to approach is to come within a perimeter and reach its innards, and in battle the attackers approach while the defenders guard what lies within their line. Verbs of ק-ר-ב that plainly mean "approach" carry the sense of engaging in battle (Shemos 14:10, Vayikra 20:10, Devarim 2:19 and 20:10). The same root gives korban, brought near to the mizbeach and bringing the one who offers it near to Hashem, and it is the Torah's idiom for marital relations (Bereishis 20:4, Vayikra 18:6, Devarim 22:14, Yeshayahu 8:3). Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 140:2) adds akrav, the scorpion, always poised to strike. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Aholei Yehudah) links garav, a kind of boil, to krav by the interchange of gimmel and kuf: it itches so fiercely that a man wages war on himself scratching it. In Tanach krav appears in set phrases: yom krav, day of battle (Zecharyah 14:3, Tehillim 78:9, Iyov 38:23), and klei krav, weapons (Koheles 9:18).

pulmus (פולמוס)

Mishnaic, a Greek loanword (polemos, war). It appears three times in one Mishnah (Sotah 9:14), listing takanos enacted at the time of the pulmus of Vespasian, the pulmus of Titus, and the last pulmus. It names a particular war or campaign, not warfare in the abstract. In Modern Hebrew it has drifted to "controversy" or "debate," as the English polemic has drifted to a war of words; do not let the later sense color a Mishnaic pulmus.

tarunya (תרוניא)

Avodah Zarah 3a: Hashem does not deal with His creations b'tarunya. The common reading takes it as one word, batrunya, a fight. Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia (Musaf HeAruch) instead reads the beis as the preposition and tarunya as a Hebraization of Greek tyronia, tyranny, so the Gemara means that Hashem does not impose His will by coercion but always gives another chance. The same word is in the Targumim, which render sarnei Plishtim (Yehoshua 13:3, Shoftim 3:3 and 16:5-27, Shmuel I 5:8-11, 6:4, 6:16, 7:7, 29:7, Divrei HaYamim I 12:20) as turnaei Plishtaei. Bereishis Rabbah 42:4 says Rome imposed a tironya on the nations; Matnos Kehunah there reads it as tyranny, that is lordship, while Rabbi Natan of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) reads it as a tax levied for military funding.

kenigia (קניגיא)

A hapax in the Bavli: Gavriel is destined to make kenigia with the Leviasan (Bava Basra 74b-75a). The Mainz commentary ascribed to Rabbeinu Gershom (to Bava Basra 75a), and the Rashba, define it simply as milchamah. The Rashbam (there) reads it as hunting, and proves it from Chullin 60b, which asks whether Moshe was a kenigi or a balistiri, that is a hunter or an archer (so Rashi and Rabbeinu Gershom there), the point being that such detail about kosher and non-kosher animals could only have come from Above.

Rendering guidance

• Milchamah: "war." Krav: "battle" or "combat." Where both stand in one passage, English "war" must not swallow krav; the Hebrew separates the conflict from the engagement.
• Yom krav is "day of battle," not "day of war," and klei krav is "weapons" or literally "instruments of battle."
• Pulmus with a Roman name attached: "the war of Vespasian," or "the Vespasian campaign." Never "the polemic," and never "the controversy."
• B'tarunya in Avodah Zarah 3a: follow the Musaf HeAruch and render "Hashem does not act tyrannically toward His creatures," noting the older reading "does not enter into battle with them" if the passage turns on it.
• Kenigia: "do battle with" follows Rabbeinu Gershom and the Rashba; "hunt" follows the Rashbam. Pick one and say which; the Leviasan aggadah reads differently under each.
• Trap: a passage that plays on lechem and milchamah together (Radak, Rav Hirsch, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim all build on the shared root) cannot be rendered without keeping the Hebrew visible; translate and gloss rather than substitute.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chukas: Words for War," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 Tammuz 5785 (2025-07-05): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/chukas-words-for-war; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11889-chukas-words-for-war.md. Primary loci: Machberes Menachem and the two Sifrei HaShorashim (Ibn Janach, Radak) s.v. ל-ח-ם; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 3:19, 10:9, 14:2 and Tehillim 140:2; Cheshek Shlomo s.v. ח-ם; Haamek Davar to Bamidbar 28:2; Zecharyah 14:3, Tehillim 78:9, Iyov 38:23, Koheles 9:18; Sotah 9:14; Avodah Zarah 2b-3a; Bereishis Rabbah 42:4 with Matnos Kehunah; Bava Basra 74b-75a; Chullin 60b. The article's Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament material, its Arabic and Proto-Indo-European comparisons, and Alexander Kohut's Aruch HaShalem are omitted here under house rule 9.