other
window
חלון · אשנב
Bottom line
Chalon is the ordinary window, an opening in a wall, and it is what a translator should reach for unless a passage marks the difference. Eshnav appears only twice in Tanach and is the narrower or latticed kind: render it small window or, where the source says so, lattice. Shoftim 5:28 puts both in one pasuk, Sisera's mother looking out of the chalon and then out of the eshnav, so "window" twice loses what the navi is doing. What the eshnav was is genuinely disputed, and a translation should not settle it silently.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| חלון | chalon | window | the general word, thirty-one times; a hole in a wall (Pappenheim, Radak) |
| אשנב | eshnav | small window, lattice | twice only; smaller (Kara, Meiri), a peephole (Rid), or latticed (Ibn Saruk, Valle) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether eshnav differs from chalon at all. Rashi (to Shoftim 5:28), Ibn Janach and Radak simply define eshnav as chalon, so the two are one word for one thing. Everyone below holds otherwise, and the Bottom line follows them, since the pasuk itself uses both in consecutive stichs.
What kind of window an eshnav is. Six readings:
- Smaller. Rabbi Yosef Kara (to Shoftim 5:28) and the Meiri (to Mishlei 7:6): an eshnav is a small window, chalon being the general term.
- A peephole. Rabbi Yishaya of Trani: narrow at the outer end and wider at the inner, like an arrow slit. (Rabbi Shaul Goldman reads the Rid's foreign gloss as balustraria, a slit for shooting arrows through.)
- Latticed. Menachem Ibn Saruk: the mesh or lattice openings of an upper floor. Rabbi Moshe David Valle: wooden latticework that a woman of means fixed to her window so she could look out without being seen, and he reads the word itself as an abbreviation of ishah nosenes b'chalonoseha, "a woman places this at her windows."
- Shuttered. Rabbi Moshe Yitzchak Tedeschi Ashkenazi (Hoil Moshe): the root is ש-נ-ב, related through the interchange of nun and lamed to ש-ל-ב, "step" or "layer," so an eshnav is a window fitted with metal shutters.
- For the wind. Rabbi Aharon Marcus: a metathesis of נ-ש-ב, the blowing of the wind, since an open window lets the air in. Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein says the same and adds that an eshnav is specifically a window for cooling; Rabbi Ernest Klein prefers this derivation.
- A lens. Malbim in Yair Ohr: an eshnav is a window, mirror or lens that makes distant objects appear near, which would require real knowledge of optics. Rabbi Chaim Futernik notes that Malbim gives no source for this; the same explanation appears almost word for word in Rabbi Elazar Reines's Shorashei Leshon HaKodesh and Mishlei Shlomo.
The Bottom line follows readings 1 and 3, which are the oldest and which a translation can carry ("small window," "lattice") without committing to more.
Which of the two was the enchanted window. The Zohar (Toldos 140b) says that idolaters used a window and witchcraft to see what was hidden, and that Sisera's mother did exactly this in looking out for her son; the same is said of Avimelech seeing that Rivkah was Yitzchak's wife (Tzror HaMor to Bereishis 26:8; Sefer HaIkkarim 4:43; Abarbanel and Alshich to Shoftim 5:28). Malbim (to Mishlei 7:6) has it that through a chalon one sees what is revealed and through an eshnav what is hidden, and (to Shoftim 5:28) that the eshnav was the enchanted window while the chalon was an ordinary one. The difficulty is that in Bereishis 26:8 Avimelech looks through a chalon. Rabbi Shmuel Landiado of Aleppo (Kli Yakar to Shoftim 5:28) therefore reverses it: the chalon was a divining mirror on her wall and the eshnav the real window onto the street, so she consulted the one and then looked out of the other. A translator should leave both words plain and put this in a note.
Distinctions
chalon (חלון)
Thirty-one appearances. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral ח-ל, circular movement and the empty space inside a circle, so a window is simply a hole in a wall. He puts a wide family under that root: chalil, the hollow flute; machol, a dance in a ring; chalom, a dream, thoughts going round and round; chillul, the void left where holiness was; challal, a corpse emptied of its life; choli and machalah; and cheil, the low wall that leaves an empty space before the high wall. In Cheshek Shlomo he adds that chalon is specifically a round window. Radak and Ibn Janach, who do not work with two-letter roots, list it under the triliteral ח-ל-ל, emptiness.
eshnav (אשנב)
Twice: Shoftim 5:28, Sisera's mother at the window, and Mishlei 7:6, where the ishah zarah is watched through the window. Modern Hebrew's eshnav, the service window of a bank or post office, is a neologism and should never be read back into a pasuk.
Rendering guidance
- חלון: "window," always.
- Shoftim 5:28: give the two words two English renderings. "She peered through the window… through the lattice" or "…through the casement" keeps the pair; "window" twice reads as mere repetition.
- Trap: English "window" absorbs both. Where a commentary is built on the difference, name the Hebrew word rather than presuming one reading.
- Mishlei 7:6: "lattice" is the safe rendering, and it is the one that carries the sense of looking out unseen.
- Do not render eshnav "service window" (modern) or "peephole" (the Rid's reading alone).
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Beshalach: Through the Looking Window," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 17 Shevat 5781 (2021-01-30): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/beshalach-through-the-looking-window; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9056-beshalach-through-the-looking-window.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 26:8; Shoftim 5:28 with Rashi, Rabbi Yosef Kara, Malbim, Abarbanel, Alshich and Kli Yakar; Mishlei 7:6 with the Meiri and Malbim; Zohar Toldos 140b; Tzror HaMor to Bereishis 26:8; Sefer HaIkkarim 4:43; Radak and Ibn Janach, Sefer HaShorashim; Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Hoil Moshe; Yair Ohr. The article's archaeological material and its Latin and English comparisons are omitted under the Orthodox-sources rule. The term zohar listed with this article in some indexes refers to the Zohar cited in it, not to a third Hebrew word for "window."