wine

וְיַיִן חָמַר (Tehillim 75:9), and the wine is red. The Targum of יַיִן, wine, is חַמְרָא, and the verb from it is said of the wine itself, to say that the wine is very red, that being its nature; in many places wine is likened to blood, וְדַם־עֵנָב תִּשְׁתֶּה־ חָֽמֶר (Devarim 32:14), and the blood of the grape you drank as wine. So too כֶּרֶם חֶמֶד (Yeshayahu 27:2), a vineyard of wine, said so for the great worth and redness of its wine; the word in that pasuk is חמר, pointed with six dots. In Arabic, red is אחמא"ר.

וַתַּחְמְרָה בַֽחֵמָר (Shemos 2:3), she daubed it with חֵמָר, which is a mortar made of lime and sand, to build with and to plaster with. Some say it is a kind of pitch. In וְהַחֵמָר הָיָה לָהֶם לַחֹֽמֶר (Bereishis 11:3), and the lime mortar served them for clay, the one is the opposite of the other, חֵמָר lime mortar and חֹמֶר earthen clay; that חֵמָר is the lime mortar appears from its standing against stone in the account, and this holds where both stand in one account. Earthen clay is what is meant in תִּתְהַפֵּךְ כְּחֹמֶר חוֹתָם (Iyov 38:14), it turns about like the clay of a seal, and in אֲנַחְנוּ הַחֹמֶר (Yeshayahu 64:7), we are the clay; and so בֶּֽאֱרֹת חֵמָר (Bereishis 14:10), pits of clay.

The verb from it is יֶהֱמוּ יֶחְמְרוּ מֵימָיו (Tehillim 46:4), its waters roar and grow turbid, since turbid water is like clay. So too with the second and third root letters doubled, פָּנַי חֳמַרְמְרֻה (Iyov 16:16), my face has grown turbid from weeping, and מֵעַי חֳמַרְמָרוּ (Eichah 1:20), my innards have grown turbid.

וְחֹמֶר שְׂעֹרִים (Hoshea 3:2), a chomer of barley, and לָשֵׂאת מַעְשַׂר הַחֹמֶר (Yechezkel 45:11), to hold a tenth of the chomer: the measure is a kor, ten ephahs, which are thirty se'ah. It is also a heap: חֹמֶר מַיִם רַבִּֽים (Chavakuk 3:15), a heap of many waters, and חֳמָרִם חֳמָרִם (Shemos 8:10), heaps upon heaps; in another form, חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם (Shoftim 15:16), a heap, two heaps.

חֲמוֹר לֶחֶם (Shmuel I 16:20) may be a heap of bread; or it is a donkey, as in חֲמֹר גָּרֶם (Bereishis 49:14), and is short a word, meaning a donkey carrying bread. חֲמֹר גָּרֶם is a strong donkey, a donkey of bones. On אֶחְבְּשָׁה־לִּי הַֽחֲמוֹר וְאֶרְכַּב עָלֶיהָ (Shmuel II 19:27), let me saddle the donkey and ride upon her, the feminine עָלֶיהָ may be because it was a she-donkey, or it is said with a beast, בהמה, in mind.

עַד הֱיוֹת רֹֽאשׁ־ חֲמוֹר בִּשְׁמֹנִים כֶּסֶף (Melachim II 6:25), until a donkey's head was sold for eighty of silver, is meant plainly, as Targum Yonasan renders it רֵישָׁא דַחֲמְרָא, a donkey's head; some read the word there as the measure, as in מַעְשַׂר הַחֹמֶר (Yechezkel 45:11), a tenth of the chomer. Of אַיָּל וּֽצְבִי וְיַחְמוּר (Devarim 14:5), the hart and the gazelle and the יַחְמוּר, Rabbi Yonah wrote that Arabic calls it by that name, and that it is a beast like a large goat.

The word stands alone in וְיַיִן לַנֶּסֶךְ רְבִיעִית הַהִין (Bamidbar 15:5), wine for a drink offering, a quarter of a hin, and binds as יֵין: יִשְׁתּוּ יֵין נְסִיכָם (Devarim 32:38), let them drink the wine of their offering. In מיין הרקח (Shir HaShirim 8:2), of the wine, the spice, in אֶת־כּוֹס הַיַּיִן הַֽחֵמָה (Yirmiyahu 25:15), the cup of the wine, the wrath, and in הִשְׁקִיתָנוּ יַיִן תַּרְעֵלָֽה (Tehillim 60:5), You gave us wine of reeling to drink, the bound word is missing, and one reads מיין יֵין הרקח, of the wine, the wine of the spice, היין יֵין החמה, the wine, the wine of wrath, and יין יֵין התרעלה, wine, the wine of reeling. It can also be read that in מיין הרקח the second word describes the wine, and then nothing is left out.

כְּיֵין הַטּוֹב (Shir HaShirim 7:10), like the good wine, where the bound form is joined to the description itself, as בְּחֵיל כָּבֵד (Yeshayahu 36:2), with a heavy army, and אֶל־מֵי הַמָּרִֽים (Bamidbar 5:23), to the bitter water.

He finds the plural in the feminine in the words of Chazal, in the Mishnah (Shekalim 4:3): יינות, wines, שמנים וסלתות, oils and fine flours.

וְלֹא תוֹנוּ אִישׁ אֶת־עֲמִיתוֹ (Vayikra 25:17), you shall not wrong one another, הוֹנוּ בָֽךְ (Yechezkel 22:7), they wronged in you, and וְהַֽאֲכַלְתִּי אֶת־ מוֹנַיִךְ (Yeshayahu 49:26), I will feed those who wrong you. The sense of wronging is known: taking other men's money in a sale or in some other way, with their knowledge or without it.

From the light form, הָעִיר הַיּוֹנָֽה (Tzefaniah 3:1), the city that wrongs, מִפְּנֵי חֶרֶב הַיּוֹנָֽה (Yirmiyahu 46:16), before the sword that wrongs, and מִפְּנֵי חֲרוֹן הַיּוֹנָה (Yirmiyahu 25:38), before the fury of the one that wrongs. In Rabbi Yonah's view נִינָם יָחַד (Tehillim 74:8), we will wrong them together, is of this root, on the pattern of נִירָם. Targum Yonasan renders מוֹנַיִךְ in this sense, and the same is said of נִינָם יָחַד, חֶרֶב הַיּוֹנָֽה and הָעִיר הַיּוֹנָֽה.

וְלֹֽא־ יוֹנוּ עוֹד נְשִׂיאַי אֶת־עַמִּי (Yechezkel 45:8), my princes will no more wrong my people, which Radak reads as their not taking the people's inheritance by force, and so לְהֽוֹנֹתָם מֵֽאֲחֻזָּתָם (Yechezkel 46:18), to wrong them out of their holding. Targum Yonasan renders it so, that the ruler shall not take of the people's inheritance to wrong them out of their own.

Chazal (Bava Metzia 58b) said there is wronging in words as well, and that this is what וְגֵר לֹֽא־ תוֹנֶה (Shemos 22:20), you shall not wrong a ger, means: לֹֽא־תוֹנֶה, do not wrong him, in words, and וְלֹא תִלְחָצֶנּוּ, do not oppress him, in money. One is not, they teach, to say to a ger, remember your earlier deeds; nor to the son of gerim, remember your fathers' deeds; nor to a Jew who has come back in teshuvah, remember your earlier deeds.

Rabbi Yehudah put וְאַֽחֲרִיתוֹ יִהְיֶה מָנֽוֹן (Mishlei 29:21), and in the end he will be מָנֽוֹן, in this root and this sense. Radak holds it more correct to take it from the root נִין.

וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ (Bamidbar 13:30), we shall take possession of it, and וִֽירִשְׁתֶּם אֹתָהּ וִֽישַׁבְתֶּם־בָּֽהּ (Devarim 11:31), and you shall take possession of it and dwell in it. מֽוֹרָשֵׁי לְבָבִֽי (Iyov 17:11) are the branchings of my heart: what the heart bequeaths and hands down, as though the branchings and thoughts of the heart were an inheritance, being ready and prepared for a man. All of them are one sense, he says, inheritance: some are a son's inheritance from his father, and some the taking of a thing out of another's hand, that is, taking his inheritance and what was in his holding, as a son takes his father's estate.

Radak reads וּבְנֵי עֵשָׂו יִֽירָשׁוּם (Devarim 2:12) as: and the sons of Esav took their inheritance. There is no need, he says, to take these words out of the sense of inheriting, which Rabbi Yonah did, explaining them as sending away.

In the sense of driving out and sending away: מוֹרִישׁ אוֹתָם מִפָּנֶֽיךָ (Devarim 18:12), drives them out before you, and וְאִם־לֹא תוֹרִישׁוּ אֶת־יֹֽשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ מִפְּנֵיכֶם (Bamidbar 33:55), and if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you. The rule, he says, is that wherever the word is bound to a מ it is driving out and sending away. The simple form has this sense too, in לָרֶשֶׁת אוֹתָם מִפָּנֶיךָ (Devarim 12:29), to drive them out before you; but it may be read as inheriting, with מפניך, before you, joined to כִּי יַכְרִית, when He cuts off, and not to לרשת, to inherit, and if so no simple form of the verb means driving out at all.

In another sense close to it: מוֹרִישׁ וּמַֽעֲשִׁיר (Shmuel I 2:7), makes poor and makes rich, and תּֽוֹרִישֵׁמוֹ יָדִֽי (Shemos 15:9), my hand shall make them poor, though that may instead be from driving out. Likewise פֶּן־ תִּוָּרֵשׁ (Bereishis 45:11), lest you be made poor, and וּפֶֽן־ אִוָּרֵשׁ וְגָנַבְתִּי (Mishlei 30:9), lest I be made poor and steal: the sense of poverty and want. Targum Yonasan renders הַלְיָרְשֵׁנוּ קְרָאתֶם לָנוּ (Shoftim 14:15) from this sense, הַלְמַסְכְּנוּתָנָא קְרֵיתוּן יָתָנָא, have you called us to make us poor. Radak's own reading of it is: have you called us to take possession of our money, and if not, why have you called us? For it looked as though they had been called to have their money taken.

From this same root, he says, comes a noun that belongs to none of those senses, הַתִּירוֹשׁ, the new wine: כַּֽאֲשֶׁר יִמָּצֵא הַתִּירוֹשׁ בָּֽאֶשְׁכּוֹל (Yeshayahu 65:8), as the new wine is found in the cluster.

וְנִסְבְּאָה שֵׁכָר (Yeshayahu 56:12), let us fill ourselves with strong drink; זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵֽא (Devarim 21:20), a glutton and a drunkard; אַל־תְּהִי בְסֹֽבְאֵי ־יָיִן (Mishlei 23:20), be not among the drinkers of wine; וּכְסָבְאָם סְבוּאִים (Nachum 1:10), and drunken as with their drink. The adjective is מֽוּבָאִים סָבָאִים מִמִּדְבָּר (Yechezkel 23:42), drunkards brought from the wilderness, that is, men who have drunk and are drunk.

Wine itself is named for it: סָבְאֵךְ מָהוּל בַּמָּֽיִם (Yeshayahu 1:22), your wine is mixed with water. And so the wine-seller was called סובא, as the poet has it, and so Chazal (Avodah Zarah 70b) speak of a woman who sells wine: ההיא מסוביתא דמסרה מפתחא לגויה, that wine-seller who handed the key to a gentile.

כּוּשׁ וּסְבָאִים אַנְשֵׁי מִדָּה (Yeshayahu 45:14), Kush and the Sevaim, men of stature, where it is the name of a nation of the sons of Kush; and מֽוּבָאִים סָבָאִים מִמִּדְבָּר (Yechezkel 23:42) can be read that way too, Sevaim brought from the wilderness.

וְעַסּוֹתֶם רְשָׁעִים (Malachi 3:21), and you shall tread down the wicked: the sense is treading and pounding. From it עָסִיס is named, as יִטְּפוּ הֶֽהָרִים עָסִיס (Yoel 4:18), the mountains shall drip juice; וְכֶֽעָסִיס דָּמָם יִשְׁכָּרוּן (Yeshayahu 49:26), and as with juice they shall be drunk with their own blood; and מֵֽעֲסִיס רִמֹּנִֽי (Shir HaShirim 8:2), of the juice of my pomegranate. It is the liquid that comes out by squeezing and pounding.

כִּי שָׂכֹר שְׂכַרְתִּיךָ (Bereishis 30:16), for I have surely hired you, and בְּיוֹמוֹ תִתֵּן שְׂכָרוֹ (Devarim 24:15), on his day you shall give him his wage. A hired man is שָׂכִיר: אִם שָׂכִיר הוּא (Shemos 22:14), if he is a hired man; the nouns are שָׂכָר and שֶׂכֶר, a wage, and מַשְׂכֻּרְתֶּךָ, your wages. שְׂבֵעִים בַּלֶּחֶם נִשְׂכָּרוּ (Shmuel I 2:5), those who were sated hired themselves out for bread. From this too, though written with a samech, is וְסֹכְרִים עֲלֵיהֶם יוֹעֲצִים (Ezra 4:5), and hiring counsellors against them.

וְשֹׂכֵר כְּסִיל וְשֹׂכֵר עֹבְרִים (Mishlei 26:10), and one who hires a fool and hires עֹבְרִים. Rabbi Yonah explains: the רב of the pasuk, the great man of the people, is מחולל to all and rules them; he pays the fool and forces him into his service, and likewise hires the עוברים, who are the refusers. Of the same kind is מַדּוּעַ אַתָּה עוֹבֵר אֵת מִצְוַת הַמֶּלֶךְ (Esther 3:3), why do you transgress the king's command. Radak's brother Rabbi Moshe joins it to the pasuk above it, חוֹחַ עָלָה בְיַד שִׁכּוֹר וּמָשָׁל בְּפִי כְסִילִים (Mishlei 26:9), a thorn goes up into a drunkard's hand, and a proverb in the mouth of fools, and takes רב as many: the fool who tells many proverbs is מחולל to everyone, like a thorn in a drunkard's hand; and one who hires the fool for his proverbs and pays the עוברים, the refusers who transgress the commandments and whom he has no power to compel, are one, this like that. Radak has written another explanation besides these under the root חול. Rav Saadiah Gaon also joins it to the pasuk before: when a word of wisdom comes into the fool's hand he is מתחולל with it and turns it over and does not understand it, like the drunkard with a thorn in his hand who drives it into his nails and between his fingers and does not feel it; and for all that he begrudges that word to one who does not know it, and pains everyone with it, which is רב מחולל כל, since he angers people's hearts with it, and he shuts his mouth from teaching it to the fool and to the wayfarers who ask him. Rav Saadiah takes שוכר from כִּי יִסָּכֵר פִּי דוֹבְרֵי שָׁקֶר (Tehillim 63:12), for the mouth of those who speak falsehood will be stopped.

גַּם שְׂכִרֶיהָ בְקִרְבָּהּ (Yirmiyahu 46:21), her hired men too in her midst: even the troops hired to fight for them were like fatted calves that cannot fight, for they too turned and fled together; the navi likens them to fatted calves because one who is fat and pampered with food and pleasures cannot fight. Some explain שכיריה as גמליה ונכבדיה, her camels and her honoured ones, and so the Targum renders it, אַף רַבְרְבָהָא בְגַוָהּ, even her great ones in her midst.

בְּתַעַר הַשְּׂכִירָה (Yeshayahu 7:20), with the hired razor, because the razor a man hires is the good and sharpened one. On the other reading, the one that takes שכיריה as her honoured ones and her great ones, בתער השכירה is likewise explained as the great razor.

Another sense: כָּל עֹשֵׂי שֶׂכֶר (Yeshayahu 19:10), all who make שֶׂכֶר. Radak has explained it already under the letter samech, with וַיִּסָּכְרוּ מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם (Bereishis 8:2), the fountains of the deep were stopped up. It may also be read as a net, עושי שכר being men who make nets to catch fish. In the words of Chazal (Sanhedrin 95a), יומא חד נפק לשכר בזאי, one day he went out לשכר בזאי; Radak explains: שכר is a net, and בזאי is the name of a bird with which nobles hunt other birds, a hawk or the like, so that he went out to hunt with a net. And so the Baal HaAruch explains it.

וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן־הַיַּיִן וַיִּשְׁכָּר (Bereishis 9:21), he drank of the wine and became drunk. But שָׁכְרוּ וְלֹא־יַיִן (Yeshayahu 29:9) is that they are drunk and not from wine, and וּשְׁכֻרַת וְלֹא מִיָּיִן (Yeshayahu 51:21) is one drunk with troubles and not with wine. Where the verb takes an object it is to make drunk: וְהִשְׁכַּרְתִּים לְמַעַן יַעֲלֹזוּ (Yirmiyahu 51:39), I will make them drunk that they may exult, and אַשְׁכִּיר חִצַּי מִדָּם (Devarim 32:42), I will make My arrows drunk with blood.

Being drunk with wine, he says, is to drink what being sated is to food; but a man may drink until he neither feels nor understands. וְהוּא שִׁכֹּר עַד־מְאֹד (Shmuel I 25:36), he was very drunk, and וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ עֵלִי לְשִׁכֹּרָה (Shmuel I 1:13), Eli took her for a drunken woman.

Wine is called שֵׁכָר because it makes drunk: שֵׁכָר יִרְדֹּפוּ (Yeshayahu 5:11), they run after intoxicating drink. A drink made from fruit that makes drunk carries the name as well. In יַיִן וְשֵׁכָר אַל־תֵּשְׁתְּ (Vayikra 10:9), drink no wine or intoxicating drink, the word takes in everything that intoxicates, even what is not wine, as Chazal say (Nazir 4a): one who ate pressed figs of Keilah, or drank milk or honey, and entered the Mikdash is liable.

בַּקֹּדֶשׁ הַסֵּךְ נֶסֶךְ שֵׁכָר (Bamidbar 28:7), in the holy place pour a libation of intoxicating drink: a libation of wine that makes drunk, and it is חי, undiluted, as the Sifri says on Pinchas: the quarter of a hin, undiluted you pour it and not the mixed. So too Midrash Rabbah (Naso) on מִיַּיִן וְשֵׁכָר יַזִּיר, from wine and intoxicating drink he shall abstain: Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says יַיִן is the mixed and שֵׁכָר the undiluted; the reverse is raised, and the pasuk of the quarter of a hin, poured undiluted, settles it the first way and not the other.

אֶשְׁכָּר יַקְרִיבוּ (Tehillim 72:10), they shall bring a gift, and הֵשִׁיבוּ אֶשְׁכָּרֵךְ (Yechezkel 27:15), they brought back your gift. He glosses it a מנחה, an offering, and says the word may have four root letters.

וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ (Bamidbar 13:30), we shall take possession of it, and וִֽירִשְׁתֶּם אֹתָהּ וִֽישַׁבְתֶּם־בָּֽהּ (Devarim 11:31), and you shall take possession of it and dwell in it. מֽוֹרָשֵׁי לְבָבִֽי (Iyov 17:11) are the branchings of my heart: what the heart bequeaths and hands down, as though the branchings and thoughts of the heart were an inheritance, being ready and prepared for a man. All of them are one sense, he says, inheritance: some are a son's inheritance from his father, and some the taking of a thing out of another's hand, that is, taking his inheritance and what was in his holding, as a son takes his father's estate.

Radak reads וּבְנֵי עֵשָׂו יִֽירָשׁוּם (Devarim 2:12) as: and the sons of Esav took their inheritance. There is no need, he says, to take these words out of the sense of inheriting, which Rabbi Yonah did, explaining them as sending away.

In the sense of driving out and sending away: מוֹרִישׁ אוֹתָם מִפָּנֶֽיךָ (Devarim 18:12), drives them out before you, and וְאִם־לֹא תוֹרִישׁוּ אֶת־יֹֽשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ מִפְּנֵיכֶם (Bamidbar 33:55), and if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you. The rule, he says, is that wherever the word is bound to a מ it is driving out and sending away. The simple form has this sense too, in לָרֶשֶׁת אוֹתָם מִפָּנֶיךָ (Devarim 12:29), to drive them out before you; but it may be read as inheriting, with מפניך, before you, joined to כִּי יַכְרִית, when He cuts off, and not to לרשת, to inherit, and if so no simple form of the verb means driving out at all.

In another sense close to it: מוֹרִישׁ וּמַֽעֲשִׁיר (Shmuel I 2:7), makes poor and makes rich, and תּֽוֹרִישֵׁמוֹ יָדִֽי (Shemos 15:9), my hand shall make them poor, though that may instead be from driving out. Likewise פֶּן־ תִּוָּרֵשׁ (Bereishis 45:11), lest you be made poor, and וּפֶֽן־ אִוָּרֵשׁ וְגָנַבְתִּי (Mishlei 30:9), lest I be made poor and steal: the sense of poverty and want. Targum Yonasan renders הַלְיָרְשֵׁנוּ קְרָאתֶם לָנוּ (Shoftim 14:15) from this sense, הַלְמַסְכְּנוּתָנָא קְרֵיתוּן יָתָנָא, have you called us to make us poor. Radak's own reading of it is: have you called us to take possession of our money, and if not, why have you called us? For it looked as though they had been called to have their money taken.

From this same root, he says, comes a noun that belongs to none of those senses, הַתִּירוֹשׁ, the new wine: כַּֽאֲשֶׁר יִמָּצֵא הַתִּירוֹשׁ בָּֽאֶשְׁכּוֹל (Yeshayahu 65:8), as the new wine is found in the cluster.