Words that Appear Only One Time in
Tanakh
There is a special term for
words that appear only one time in Tanakh.They are called “hapax legomena.”
(This is Greek for “once said.”) There are about 1300 such words in Tanakh. Of
course, a form of a word might appear only one time, but the root itself may
appear many times. An example is emdato
(“standing place) of Michah 1:11. We all know the root ayin-mem-dalet,
so there is no problem in understanding this one-time word. The more
interesting words are words that appear only one time and do not share a
related three-letter root with other known words. There are about 400 such words.
Both the Encyclopaedia Judaica
and the old Jewish Encyclopedia include an entry for “hapax legmonena.” But
the Jewish Encyclopedia also includes an attempt at a list of such words. Many
of the hapax legmonena are words for animals, plants and diseases.
Others are loan words from foreign languages.
Sometimes the meaning of
these words can be guessed at from the context. If not, sometimes we can find
help in one of the other Semitic languages. Other times we can find the word in
Hebrew from a later period such as the Mishnah. We can also look to how the
word was translated into Greek in the Septuagint around 200 BCE. Finally,
sometimes we make a reasonable conjecture that the word is related to another
Hebrew root that shares some of its root letters.
The
Jewish Encyclopedia lists 15 hapax legomena in the book of Genesis. I
will now go through some of them. (For brevity, I will shorten the term to hapax.)
You will see that for many of these words, there is a question as to whether or
not the word is properly considered a hapax.
Hal’iteini (25:30) (used by Esau when asking to be fed): Although
the root lamed-ayin-tet appears nowhere else in Tanakh, it does appear
in the Mishnah and Tosefta (e.g., Mishnah Shabbat 24:3). We can deduce from
these sources that it means to put food into someone’s mouth. (It is in the hiph’il,
so literally it means “to cause someone else to swallow.”)
Batnim (43:11) (sent by Jacob to
Joseph): From the context, these seem to be a type of nuts. The word is usually translated as “pistachios.”
Even though this word only appears once, the word for stomach, beten,
appears many times. S. Mandelkern suggests that batnim are called this
because they have the shape of a stomach. If this unlikely conjecture would be
correct, then batnim should not be considered a hapax.
Gofer (6:14) (a type of wood used to
make Noah’s ark): A different word with the same root letters, gafrit,
appears many times and means “sulphur.” If gofer and gafrit would
be related, then gofer should not be considered a hapax. But admittedly
a relationship between the two seems unlikely.
Avrekh (41:43) (used
regarding Joseph, after his important appointment: va-yikreu lefanav avrekh):
Perhaps this is an Egyptian word, some kind of title that Joseph was given. But
it is possible that it is a Hebrew word and is related to the word for knee (bet-resh-caf)
and means “bend down, kneel” (as Joseph passes by). If so, it should not be
considered a hapax.
Meshek (15:2): u-ven meshek beiti
hu Damesek Eliezer. It seems that the reason this unusual word was chosen
was a play on words with Damesek (even though Damesek has a sin,
and not a shin). From the context, it seems that meshek means
something like “support” (Rashi, Targum) or “manage” (S.D. Luzzatto). Many
suggest a relation with yishak of Gen. 41:40. (Note that another difficult word, mimshak,
appears at Zeph. 2:9. If it would be related to meshek, then meshek
would not be a hapax.)
Mishtaeh (24:21) (describing Eliezer looking at Rivkah): The root
here is shin-aleph-he. This root does appear elsewhere in Tanakh. It has
the meaning of “desolation” or “ruin.” The author of the Jewish Encyclopedia
list included mishtaeh because he believed that the underlying shin-aleph-he
root here is not related to the other shin-aleph-he root. But many
disagree and do relate Eliezer’s action to the “desolation” meaning. They view the
meaning of Eliezer’s mishtaeh as “astonished,” and believe its origin is
“desolation/emptiness of the brain.” I
find this hard to accept.
Looking outside of Genesis, here are some of my favorite hapax:
Maakeh (Deut. 22:8): The Torah
commands us to build a maakeh for our roofs, so people will not fall. But
what is a maakeh? The root ayin- kuf-he appears nowhere else in
Tanakh. But from the context, we understand that it must mean some kind of railing.
(Many also suggest a connection with the root ayin-vav-kuf, which means
“press.”)
Mesakrot (Isaiah 3:16): This is
described as something that haughty women do with their eyes. The root here is sin-kuf-resh.
But wait a minute, the root shin-kuf-resh (to lie) appears
119 times. Why was the dot put on the
left here? Why was not the dot put on the right like all the other times?
Obviously, those who were responsible for the nekudot must have had a
strong tradition that the letter here was a sin and not a shin.
As to the meaning of the Biblical root sin-kuf-resh, some attempt to
deduce its meaning from the Mishnaic root samekh-kuf-resh, which itself
has two different meanings: paint red, and look.
Ha-Achashtranim Bnei Ha-Ramakhim (Esther
8:10): Here we have two such words. This is a well-known phrase because an
amora in the Talmud (at Meg. 18a) seems to admit that even the amoraic Sages
did not know the meaning of the phrase. Ramakhim
is found in Mishnah Kilaim 8:5, and is a kind of horse, so perhaps the amoraic
statement is really focused on the first word. The solution to achashtranim
was found in the mid-19th century, when ancient Persian cuneiform
was deciphered. It likely means “governmental.” (For those curious, the phrase
is discussed at length in an article by Rabbi Zvi Ron in the Jan.-Mar. 2008
issue of The Jewish Bible Quarterly.)
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There are words that appear twice in Tanakh but
effectively appear only once. This occurs when an identical passage is repeated
in two different books of the Tanakh. An example is shenhabim (ivory),
found only at 1 Kings 10:22 and its repetition at II Chronicles 9:21. (Shenhav
is a combination of shen/tooth and hav/elephant.) Another
interesting word is amtachat (sack), repeated 14 times in Genesis
chapters 42-44, but found nowhere else!
Finally, there is a very unusual root, tet-aleph-tet-aleph,
that appears only twice in Tanakh, both times at Is. 14:23. It means “sweep.”
According to the Talmud (Rosh Ha-Shanah 26b), the Sages only learned the
meaning of this word by overhearing it being used by the handmaid of Rabbi
Yehuda Ha-Nasi!
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Mitchell
First is an attorney and Jewish history scholar. His most recent book is Esther
Unmasked: Solving Eleven Mysteries of the Jewish Holidays and Liturgy
(Kodesh Press, 2015). He can be reached at MFirstAtty@aol.com. He regrets not having used any hapax in
his book title.
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