nature
wetness
At a glance
In short
Lach is moist. For Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim it is only a little wet, and also the inner moisture of a living thing. Ratuv is wet. Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Radak simply define it as lach, and Rabbi Klein suggests that perhaps the two are not technically synonyms, lach being native Hebrew and ratuv borrowed from Aramaic. Pappenheim instead makes ratuv enough liquid to show on the surface and to wet whatever touches it, moisture that comes from outside, and Rabbi Avraham Bedersi likewise makes it moisture from external water. Ra'anan is fresh, verdant. Ibn Ezra says it means the same as ratuv, while for Bedersi it is the inner moisture that keeps a thing growing. Rutfash is revivified, flesh restored to youthful moisture. Tofeach and mefulam are Rabbinic. Tofeach is wet, familiar from tofeach al menas lehatfiach, wet enough to make something else wet. Mefulam is wet for Rashi but hearty, plump for the Aruch, and Rabbi Klein suggests Rashi may mean sodden, so saturated as to be bloated. Pappenheim's difference between a little moisture and enough to wet something else can carry halachic weight.
Distinctions
Lach (לח)
Three times in the Torah and four more in Tanach: Yaakov's still-lach branches (Bereishis 30:37), the nazir's grapes, whether lachim or dried (Bamidbar 6:3), and Moshe Rabbeinu at 120, "his eye had not dimmed and his leicho had not fled" (Devarim 34:7); also of flora that has not dried out (Shoftim 16:7-8; Yechezkel 17:24, 21:3). It appears numerous times in the Mishnah (Demai 2:3; Nedarim 7:1; Eduyos 5:4; Menachos 9:2; Bechoros 6:3; Mikvaos 9:2; Niddah 4:3, 7:2).
The word is a case study in root theory.
- Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem, 920 to 970), the consummate biliteralist, gives the root as lamed-ches, which makes sense for a two-letter word.
- The triliteralists are at a loss: Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim) offers lamed-vav-ches or lamed-yud-ches; Radak, more definitively, and Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch) settle on lamed-vav-ches.
- Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi (1821 to 1898) suggests lach is related to rach, soft, through the interchange of REISH with LAMED and KAF with CHES.
- Pappenheim, like Ibn Saruk, takes lamed-ches as the ultimate root, meaning moisture itself, and hangs a family on it: lechi, the cheek, a concentration of inner moisture, and from the cheek's likeness to a flat board luach, a board (in Rabbinic Hebrew lechi is also the upright post of an eruv); lechem, bread or meat, which sustains and restores inner moisture; and melach, salt, which draws liquid out, as in salting meat. The name of the Lechi paramilitary group is an acronym of lochamei cheirus Yisrael and has nothing to do with the word.
Another word for moist: in umakah teriyah (Yeshayahu 1:6), Rashi (in his second explanation, citing Menachem), Ibn Ezra and Radak read teriyah as a wet wound, one that stays moist. Ibn Ezra compares lechi chamor teriyah (Shoftim 15:15).
Ratuv (רטוב)
All the classical lexicographers agree on the root reish-tes-beis. It occurs twice in Tanach, both in Iyov: a well-watered plant, ratov before the sun (8:16), and the man robbed of his clothing, soaked by the mountain runoff, yirtavu (24:8).
- It is the Targumim's standard rendering of lach, and Rashi (Iyov 8:16, 24:8; Sukkah 10b), Ibn Ezra (Iyov 8:16), and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) define ratuv as lach.
- Since the Targumim typically render lach by ratuv, as Rashi (Iyov 24:8) and Ibn Ezra (Iyov 8:16) note, Rabbi Klein suggests that perhaps the two are not technically synonyms, because lach is a native Hebrew word while ratuv is borrowed from Aramaic (or another Semitic language).
Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo) takes another approach and distinguishes them twice over. Quantitatively: lach is only slightly wet, certainly not enough to wet what touches it, often something that has begun to dry, like Yaakov's branches or harvested grapes still moist inside as against raisins; ratuv is very wet, with the wetness visible on the surface and certainly enough to wet what touches it. Qualitatively: lach is the inner moisture of every living creature and plant, without which the body withers, while ratuv is moisture arriving from outside and seen on the surface.
Mishnaic Hebrew keeps ratuv for wet (Tevul Yom 3:6; see also Uktzin 2:2) but more commonly uses the cognate rotev, juices, fluids or sauce (Pesachim 7:2; Nedarim 7:6; Zevachim 3:4; Chullin 7:5, 9:1; Taharos 1:4, 3:1). Pappenheim reads rotev off ratuv, liquid too abundant to be absorbed so that it stays on the surface, and sees it as synonymous with biblical marak (Shoftim 6:19-20), a link already drawn by pseudo-Rashi to Nedarim 52a. Modern Hebrew has made marak "soup," close to its original meaning.
Ra'anan (רענן)
Twenty occurrences in Tanach, only one in the Torah (Devarim 12:2).
- Ibn Ezra there says it means the same as ratuv; the Targumim do not generally render it so, but in at least one place they do (Tehillim 92:15, see also 92:11).
- Since the word always ends in a double nun, Radak gives the root as reish-ayin-nun and Ibn Saruk as a four-letter reish-ayin-nun-nun.
- Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (thirteenth century; Chosam Tochnis, the first lexicon of Hebrew synonyms) defines ratuv as moisture from external water and sets it against its ostensible synonym ra'anan, the internal moist freshness that lets a thing keep growing rather than dry and wither.
- Rabbi Tedeschi parses ra'anan as a portmanteau of re'ah, friend, and anan, cloud: a plant still moist keeps growing until it is so tall it is "a friend of the clouds."
Rutfash (רטפש)
A hapax, like ratuv found only in Iyov: Elihu says that when a sick man's merits intercede, Hashem heals him so that "his flesh is revivified (rutfash) more than in youth" (Iyov 33:25). Its apparent root is the four-letter reish-tes-peh-shin, but four-letter roots are rare in Biblical Hebrew and occur more often in foreign loanwords, and the commentators instead relate it to ratuv in four ways.
- Rav Hirsch (Bereishis 25:6): the final shin is paragogic, leaving reish-tes-peh, equal to ratuv's reish-tes-beis by the peh-beis interchange.
- A portmanteau of ratuv and pash, expansion: those who implicitly or explicitly follow this include Rabbi Yosef Kara, Rabbi Yosef Kimchi, Sforno, Metzudas Tzion (Iyov 33:25), Radak (Tehillim 103:5), and pseudo-Rashi (Nedarim 41a).
- Malbim (Iyov 33:25), similarly, a portmanteau of ratuv and tafash, smeared.
- Rabbi Yosef Kimchi (Iyov 33:25) and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) read it as a cognate of ratuv, its first two letters matching ratuv's and its last two matching ratuv's last two in at-bash.
Tofeach (טופח)
Rabbinic only (Eduyos 4:6; Keilim 8:3-4, 10:8; Taharos 1:9, 3:1, 8:8-9; Machshirin 3:5), and familiar from tofeach al menas lehatfiach (Berachos 25b; Yoma 78a), so wet that it can make other things wet. Its root tes-peh-ches means something else in Tanach, the source of tefach, a handbreadth, and of words for measuring length and extension, a sense that carries into Rabbinic Hebrew. How that fits the "wet" sense is unclear; Rabbi Klein suggests, as his own tentative proposal, that perhaps an item dripping wet expands in its dimensions.
Mefulam (מפולם)
Three appearances in the Bavli, with no known relatives for the ostensible root peh-lamed-mem in Biblical or Mishnaic Hebrew, with one possible exception (below): mefulamos fish accepted from a gentile on Yom Tov (Beitzah 24b); bohu as the mefulamos stones sunk in the deep from which water flowed (Chagigah 12a); and mefulamos stones, quarried from the sea bed and so untouched by any tool, fit for the mizbeach (Zevachim 54a; see Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky's Derech Chochmah to the Rambam, Hilchos Beis HaBechirah 1:92).
- Rashi in all three places: wet.
- Rabbi Nosson of Rome (1035 to 1106) in Sefer HeAruch, against Rashi, defines it hearty, plump, or fat.
On the etymology, Dr. Marcus Jastrow (1829 to 1903) takes it as a cognate of Arabic tafailam, whose meaning is comparable with the Aruch's definition. Dr. Alexander Kohut (1842 to 1894), in Aruch HaShalem, suggests the root derives either from the Persian for a clump of dirt or from Greek piloma, piloga, pilos ("clay, mud, pile"), treated as though Hebrew. The Greek piloma in fact appears in some versions of Mishnah Shabbos 22:6 (the Kaufmann manuscript and the Alfasi), a muddy river one may not go into on Shabbos. To square all this with Rashi's "wet," Rabbi Klein suggests Rashi might have read the word on the model of tofeach: so saturated with liquid as to be bloated, distended, and plump.
Ralbag (Bereishis 1:2) takes another road, reading the mefulamos that define bohu as a cognate of palmoni (Daniel 8:13), itself from ploni and almoni, terms for the anonymous and unknown, so that bohu means mysterious stones. The Rema (1520 to 1572) cites his reading in Mechir Yayin (to Esther 2:1) and Toras HaOlah (3:73); see also Ben Yehoyada to Chagigah 12a.
Also discussed in
- Breadלחם / lechem (ל-ח)
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
ט-פ-ח
The tefach, a handbreadth, measured by four fingers held together; and a verb of rearing children, since an infant is patted and his limbs straightened as he is swaddled.
The measure
מִסְגֶּרֶת טֹפַח (Shemos 25:25), a rim a handbreadth wide, and שֵׁשׁ־אַמּוֹת בָּאַמָּה וָטֹפַח (Yechezkel 40:5), six cubits by the cubit and a handbreadth; on another pattern, with a segol, וְעָבְיוֹ טֶפַח (Divrei HaYamim II 4:5), its thickness a handbreadth. In Tanach the plural is feminine, הִנֵּה טְפָחוֹת נָתַתָּה יָמַי (Tehillim 39:6), behold, You have made my days handbreadths, while Chazal (Bava Basra 1:1) use it as a masculine, טפחים.
Tefach and zeres
The tefach is of a kind with the זרת, the span, but not of one size with it: the span is measured by the fingers of the hand spread apart and the tefach by four fingers held together, and the span is three tefachim, as he has written.
How short his days are
הִנֵּה טְפָחוֹת נָתַתָּה יָמַי, You have made my days handbreadths, answers what comes before it, וּמִדַּת יָמַי מַה־הִיא (Tehillim 39:5), and the measure of my days, what it is: as the tefach's measure is small, so is the measure of my days. Even were I to live all a man can live, my days are handbreadths, וְחֶלְדִּי כְאַיִן נֶגְדֶּךָ, and my lifetime is as nothing before You, as it says כִּי אֶלֶף שָׁנִים בְּעֵינֶיךָ כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל (Tehillim 90:4), for a thousand years in Your eyes are as yesterday.
Built by the handbreadth
וּמִמַּסַּד עַד־הַטְּפָחוֹת (Melachim I 7:9), from the foundation up to the טְפָחוֹת, is from the foundation up to the wall above, which was built to the handbreadth measure; Targum Yonasan renders it finished by handbreadths.
Patting a child
וִימִינִי טִפְּחָה שָׁמָיִם (Yeshayahu 48:13), and My right hand spread out the heavens, where some precise sefarim point טפחה with a chataf kamatz. אֲשֶׁר־טִפַּחְתִּי וְרִבִּיתִי (Eichah 2:22), those whom I reared and raised: טִפַּחְתִּי is said of the rearing of children, since so they do to an infant, patting him and straightening his limbs each time they swaddle him. The noun from it is in עֹלֲלֵי טִפֻּחִים (Eichah 2:20), infants whom they would pat while they were small, tending to their rearing, and whom they afterwards ate.
The mitpachas
הָבִי הַמִּטְפַּחַת אֲשֶׁר־עָלַיִךְ (Rus 3:15), give me the mitpachas that is on you: it is a veil, and so וְהַמִּטְפָּחוֹת (Yeshayahu 3:22), and the veils. So too in the words of Chazal (Megillah 26b): mitpachos of sefarim that have worn out are made into shrouds for a meis mitzvah, and that is their genizah. Some explain הַמִּטְפָּחוֹת from the first sense, as houses for the hands, gloves, and the vernacular word for them is given.
מִסְגֶּרֶת טֹפַח (שמות כה, כה), שֵׁשׁ־אַמּוֹת בָּֽאַמָּה וָטֹפַח (יחזקאל מ, ה). ומשקל אחר וְעָבְיוֹ טֶפַח (דברי הימים ב' ד, ה), בסגול. והקבוץ מצאנו במקרא בלשון נקבות הִנֵּה טְפָחוֹת נָתַתָּה יָמַי (תהלים לט, ו). ורבותינו ז"ל (בבא בתרא פרק א, משנה א) נשתמשו בזה הלשון בלשון זכרים טפחים טפחים. ענין טפח כענין זרת אבל אין מדת הטפח כמדת הזרת, כי מדת הזרת באצבעות היד מפוזרות ומדת הטפח בארבע אצבעות דבוקות זו בזו והזרת הוא שלשה טפחים כמו שכתבנו. ופירוש הִנֵּה טְפָחוֹת נָתַתָּה יָמַי כמו שמדת הטפח קטנה כן מדת ימי, לפי שאמר הוֹדִיעֵנִי יְהֹוָה קִצִּי וּמִדַּת יָמַי מַה־הִיא (תהלים לט, ה), אמר הִנֵּה טְפָחוֹת נָתַתָּה יָמַי כלומר אפילו אחיה כל מה שיוכל אדם לחיות טפחות הם ימי וְחֶלְדִּי כְאַיִן נֶגְדֶּךָ כמו שאמר כִּי אֶלֶף שָׁנִים בְּֽעֵינֶיךָ כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל (תהלים צ, ד). וּמִמַּסַּד עַד־הַטְּפָחוֹת (מלכים א' ז, ט), פירוש מן היסוד ועד הכותל למעלה שהיה בנוי במדת הטפח ויונתן תרגם וּמְשַׁכְלְלָן בְּפוּשְׁכַיָא. והפעל הכבד ממנו [פִּעֵל] וִֽימִינִי טִפְּחָה שָׁמָיִם (ישעיה מח, יג), ובקצת ספרים מדוייקים טפחה בקמץ חטף. אֲשֶׁר־טִפַּחְתִּי וְרִבִּיתִי (איכה ב, כב), אמר טִפַּחְתִּי בענין גידול הנערים כי כן עושין לתינוק שמטפחין אותו ומישרין אבריו בכל עת כשמחתלין אותו. וכן השם ממנו עֹֽלֲלֵי טִפֻּחִים (איכה ב, כ), כלומר עוללים שיטפחו אותם בעודם קטנים ויתעסקו בגידולם ואכלום אחר כן. הָבִי הַמִּטְפַּחַת אֲשֶׁר־עָלַיִךְ (רות ג, טו), פירושו צעיף. וכן וְהַמִּטְפָּחוֹת וְהָֽחֲרִיטִֽים (ישעיה ג, כב), פירוש צעיפים. וכן בדברי רבותינו ז"ל (מגילה כו, ע"ב) מטפחות ספרים שבלו עושין מהן תכריכין למת מצוה וזו היא גניזתן. ויש מפרשים הַמִּטְפָּחוֹת מהענין הראשון והם בתי הידים גונט"ץ [גְוַואנטֵ"י בלע"ז] .
ר-ט-ב
To be moist; the sense of both pesukim, he says, is moisture.
The two pesukim
רָטֹב הוּא לִפְנֵי־שָׁמֶשׁ (Iyov 8:16), he is moist before the sun, and מִזֶּרֶם הָרִים יִרְטָבוּ (Iyov 24:8), they are wet from the downpour of the mountains. Their sense is that of moisture.
רָטֹב הוּא לִפְנֵי־שָׁמֶשׁ (איוב ח, טז), מִזֶּרֶם הָרִים יִרְטָבוּ (איוב כד, ח), ענינם ענין לחות.
ר-ט-פ-ש
Of flesh, grew soft, as he reads it from its place in its one pasuk; some take it as a word made of two.
The one pasuk
רֻטֲפַשׁ בְּשָׂרוֹ מִנֹּעַר (Iyov 33:25), his flesh grew soft beyond a youth's: that the word means it became soft, he says, is to be taken from its place.
A word made of two
Some say it is a word compounded of two words. The two, as he spells them out, are רטוב and פש, that is, moist and be fruitful and multiply, the second from the Targum of פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ (Bereishis 1:28), be fruitful and multiply, which is פּוּשׁוּ וּסְגוּ.
Read by atbash, and the Targum
It is also explained that רטפש is רטוב by atbash, the peh standing for a vav and the shin for a beis. The Targum renders it אִתְחֲלִישׁ בִּסְרֵיהּ, his flesh grew weak.
רֻֽטֲפַשׁ בְּשָׂרוֹ מִנֹּעַר (איוב לג, כה), ענינו לפי מקומו נתרכך. ויש אומרים שהיא מלה מורכבת משתי מלות רוצה לומר רטוב ופש, כלומר רטוב ופְּרֵה וּרְבֵה, מן פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ (בראשית א, כח) [תרגום] פּוּשׁוּ וּסְגוּ. ופירשו עוד במלה הזאת רטפש הוא רטוב בא"ת ב"ש הפ"א ו"ו והשי"ן בי"ת. ותרגומו אִתְחֲלִישׁ בִּסְרֵיהּ.
ר-ע-ן
Fresh with moisture: the sense, he says, is לחות, moistness; an olive tree, a leaf, a couch; and fresh oil, meaning new oil.
Verb or adjective by the stress
The verb is found with its last letter doubled. וְכִפָּתוֹ לֹא רַעֲנָנָה (Iyov 15:32), and his branch was not fresh, is a past verb, because the stress falls back; אַף־עַרְשֵׂנוּ רַעֲנָנָה (Shir HaShirim 1:16), our couch too is fresh, is an adjective, because the stress falls at the end.
Moistness
כְּזַיִת רַעֲנָן (Tehillim 52:10), like a fresh olive tree; וְהָיָה עָלֵהוּ רַעֲנָן (Yirmiyahu 17:8), and its leaf will be fresh; and in the plural, which takes a dagesh, דְּשֵׁנִים וְרַעֲנַנִּים יִהְיוּ (Tehillim 92:15), they will be fat and fresh. Their sense is לחות, moistness.
Fresh oil
בְּשֶׁמֶן רַעֲנָן (Tehillim 92:11), with fresh oil, means new oil.
הפעל הזה נמצא כפול הלמ"ד וְכִפָּתוֹ לֹא רַֽעֲנָֽנָה (איוב טו, לב), פעל חולף כי הוא מלעיל. אַף־עַרְשֵׂנוּ רַֽעֲנָנָֽה (שיר השירים א, טז), תאר כי הוא מלרע. כְּזַיִת רַֽעֲנָן(תהלים נב, י), וְהָיָה עָלֵהוּ רַֽעֲנָן (ירמיה יז, ח), בְּשֶׁמֶן רַֽעֲנָֽן (תהלים צב, יא). והקבוץ ידגש דְּשֵׁנִים וְרַֽעֲנַנִּים יִהְיֽוּ (תהלים צב, טו), ענינם ענין לחות. ואמרו בְּשֶׁמֶן רַֽעֲנָֽן כלומר חדש.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Titzaveh: Wet Words," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 24 February 2024.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Wet Words," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 1:2 (Ralbag), 25:6 (Rav Hirsch), 30:37; Bamidbar 6:3; Devarim 12:2 (Ibn Ezra), 34:7; Shoftim 6:19-20, 16:7-8; Yechezkel 17:24, 21:3; Iyov 8:16, 24:8, 33:25; Tehillim 92:11, 92:15, 103:5 (Radak); Daniel 8:13; Esther 2:1; Mishnah Demai 2:3, Nedarim 7:1, 7:6, Eduyos 4:6, 5:4, Menachos 9:2, Bechoros 6:3, Mikvaos 9:2, Niddah 4:3, 7:2, Tevul Yom 3:6, Uktzin 2:2, Pesachim 7:2, Zevachim 3:4, Chullin 7:5, 9:1, Taharos 1:4, 1:9, 3:1, 8:8-9, Keilim 8:3-4, 10:8, Machshirin 3:5, Shabbos 22:6; Sukkah 10b; Berachos 25b; Yoma 78a; Beitzah 24b; Chagigah 12a; Zevachim 54a; Nedarim 41a, 52a; Rashi and Ibn Ezra to Iyov; Menachem Ibn Saruk, Machberes Menachem; Ibn Janach and Radak, Sifrei HaShorashim; Ibn Parchon, Machberes HeAruch; Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi, Otzar Nirdafim (קסח); Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo; Rabbi Avraham Bedersi, Chosam Tochnis; Rabbi Yosef Kara; Rabbi Yosef Kimchi; Sforno; Metzudas Tzion; Malbim; Rabbi Nosson of Rome, Sefer HeAruch; Marcus Jastrow; Alexander Kohut, Aruch HaShalem; Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Derech Chochmah to Hilchos Beis HaBechirah 1:92; the Rema, Mechir Yayin and Toras HaOlah; Ben Yehoyada to Chagigah 12a; Yeshayahu 1:6 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Radak; Shoftim 15:15.