speech
witness
עד · עדות · סהד · קדוש
Bottom line
Eid is witness and eidus testimony; sahad is the Aramaic for the same, so render it witness too. They are not true synonyms, since they belong to two languages (Yerushalmi Sotah 7:2; Shabbos 115b), which is the whole point of Lavan naming the mound Yegar Sahadusa and Yaakov Gal-Eid (Bereishis 31:47). Eid also means warn, and that sense must not be flattened into "testify." One who dies al kiddush Hashem is a kadosh, never a "witness."
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| עד | eid | witness | Hebrew; the one who knows, and who warns (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
| עדות | eidus | testimony | what he gives; also the mitzvos that testify, and the Torah that warns |
| סהד | sahad | witness | Aramaic and Syriac; the one who relays (Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer) |
| קדוש | kadosh | martyr, holy one | the Jewish word for one killed for Hashem's sake, from "holy," not "witness" |
Where the authorities disagree
What separates eid from sahad in Iyov 16:19, where they stand in parallel ("my witness is in Heaven, my sahad on high"). Malbim: eid attests to Iyov's conduct with other people, sahad to his piety before Hashem. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer: eid names how the witness came to know (from vaad, a meeting), sahad how he conveys it (kin to heid, a thunderclap or echo, Yechezkel 7:7; Amos 4:13). Both read a poetic doubling; the Bottom line renders both "witness" and leaves the distinction to a note, since the Talmudim (Yerushalmi Sotah 7:2; Shabbos 115b) treat sahaduta as simply the Aramaic word.
Where eid comes from. Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak give the biliteral ע-ד without saying how its offshoots hang together. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo, Cheshek Shlomo) supplies the thread: the root means joining one thing to another, as in ad, "until," hence moed (a meeting), eidah (a congregation), adi (an adornment joined to what it beautifies); testimony joins a deed to the one who did it. Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch) derives eid from adi directly: testimony stands out from ordinary speech as ornament stands out. Rabbi Avraham Kobernick (Hipuch Osiyos) reads ע-ד as ד-ע, "knowledge," reversed, making the eid the one in the know. Shadal (to Bereishis 31:50) goes outside Hebrew, to a Syriac root ע-ה-ד, remember, mention, warn, making warning the primary role. Follow Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, who covers the warning and monument senses at once.
Whether sahad is related to sa'ad. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 20:3) and Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Ohalei Yehuda) say yes, hey and ayin interchanging: a witness supports one side of the case. Neither changes the English.
Distinctions
eid (עד) and eidus (עדות)
Beyond the courtroom, eid is used of a monument that keeps a message before people, which is why the mound Yaakov and Lavan raised is Gal-Eid. A class of mitzvos is called eidos because they testify to what befell Klal Yisrael (Devarim 4:45, 6:17; Tehillim 93:5). The second sense is warning: because a witness's job includes warning the would-be sinner, eid took on "warn" outside any court setting (Bereishis 43:3; Shemos 19:21, 21:29). From that, the Torah itself is eidus (Shemos 31:18; Bamidbar 18:2), most of its injunctions being warnings, and an ox that has gored three times is a muad (Bava Kama 1:4, 2:4) because its owner has been warned.
sahad (סהד)
Twice in Tanach: Yegar Sahadusa, Lavan's Aramaic name for the mound (Bereishis 31:47), and Iyov's sahadi in the heights (Iyov 16:19). It does not appear in the Mishnah, but sahadei, spelled with a samech, is the ordinary Talmudic Aramaic for witnesses, as in anan sahadi, "we ourselves testify." The initial letter is unstable: a sin in both pesukim, a samech in the Gemara.
kadosh (קדוש)
The Syriac cognate of sahad, and the Arabic shahid borrowed from it, both mean "witness" and both came to mean martyr, as the Greek-derived English martyr does. Judaism does not name its martyrs that way. One killed al kiddush Hashem is a kadosh, from kedushah, whose core is separation: Hashem is Kadosh because He is wholly other. A Jew who gives his life declares that even life stands below Hashem's will, which is a declaration of Hashem's kedushah, not a proof of the Torah's truth, which needs no such proof.
Rendering guidance
- Both עד and סהד render "witness"; עדות is "testimony." Do not invent an English contrast between them, since the difference is which language is being spoken.
- Bereishis 31:47 is where the contrast is the whole point: transliterate both names, Yegar Sahadusa and Gal-Eid, and gloss ("both mean 'mound of witness,' the one Aramaic, the other Hebrew").
- Trap: English "witness" will absorb the warning sense of עד as well. Shemos 21:29 (v'hu'ad bivalav) and Bereishis 43:3 (ha'ed he'id banu) are "warned," not "testified"; a translation that keeps "testify" there loses the halachah.
- עדות of the Aron is "the Testimony" by convention (Aron ha'Eidus); the mitzvah class is "eidos" or "testimonial mitzvos."
- Never render kadosh in a martyrdom context as "martyr" without keeping the Hebrew or the sense "holy one"; the whole distinction from shahid rides on it.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayeitzei: Testify!", What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 12 Kislev 5784 (2023-11-25): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11139-vayeitzei-testify.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 31:47, 31:50, 43:3; Shemos 19:21, 21:29, 26:33, 31:18; Bamidbar 18:2; Devarim 4:45, 6:17, 32:21; Tehillim 93:5, 119:2, 20:3; Iyov 16:19 with Malbim; Yechezkel 7:7; Amos 4:13; Yerushalmi Sotah 7:2 and Sanhedrin 10:1; Shabbos 115b; Megillah 9a; Mishnah Bava Kama 1:4; Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Machberes HeAruch; Hipuch Osiyos; Ohalei Yehuda. Syriac and Arabic cognates are reported only where the article's argument about kadosh turns on them.