When the Pharaoh finally let the Jews leave Egypt, the Bible reports that the Jews were chamushim (Ex. 13:18). Most of my readers are likely familiar with the exegetical interpretations of this word cited by Mechilta and Rashi, which interpret the word chamushim as a cognate of the Hebrew word chamesh (“five”) in explaining that only one-fifth, one-fiftieth, or one-five-hundredth of the Jews enslaved in Egypt actually left in the exodus.
However, the more literal understanding of the word chamushim means that the Jews exiting Egypt were “armed.” As Nachmanides explains, the Jews entering the wilderness were “packing heat,” because they were scared that the Philistines or other nations might attack them on their way to the Holy Land. In fact, one Midrash states (Bamidbar Rabbah §13:20) that chamushim means the same thing as chalutzim, while other Midrashim state that it means mezuyanim. All three of these words — chamush, chalutz and mezuyan — are adjectives that refer to those who are “armed” and ready to do battle. In this essay we explore these three synonyms by analyzing their respective etymologies and tracing them to their core meanings.
Although the term chamush only appears once in the Pentateuch (in Ex. 13:18, as mentioned above), it appears another three times in rest of the Bible: The first is when Joshua reminds the Tribes of Gad and Reuben that they undertook to militarily help the rest of the Jews conquer the Holy Land proper as a condition for them receiving their land in the trans-Jordan region. In that context, Joshua says that "armed" (chamush) soldiers from Gad and Reuben were expected to lead the Jews’ war effort (Joshua 1:14). Similarly, when relating that soldiers from Gad and Reuben did precisely that, the word chamush appears again (Joshua 4:12). Finally, the word chamush also appears in the sense of “armed men” in the context of Gideon’s war with the Midianites (Judges 7:11). (In Modern Hebrew, the association with armaments continued to be developed, such that the word tachmoshet refers to “ammunition/ammo.”)
The Talmud offers an exegetical approach that connects chamush to chamesh: The Mishna (Shabbat 6:4) discusses what sorts of paraphernalia a man might be allowed to equip himself with when going out into a public domain on Shabbat. In that context, the Mishnah mentions five different weapons with which a man might arm himself: a sword, a bow, a shield, a club, and a spear. On this Mishna, the Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbat 6:4) comments that when the Torah states that the Jews exiting Egypt were chamushim, the word chamushim is a cognate of the word chamesh (“five”) and alludes to the fact that the Jews were armed with “five” types of weapons — the very same five listed in the Mishna.
In this way, we have another of way of seeing how chamush relates back to other meanings of the root CHET-MEM-SHIN. Although the standard editions of the Jerusalem Talmud read “fifteen” instead of “five,” the version I cited is the one preferred by Rabbi David Frankel (1704-1762) in Korban HaEidah, Rabbi Baruch Epstein (1860-1941) in Torah Temimah (to Ex. 13:18) and by Rav Chaim Kanievsky. Mechilta D’Rashbi and the Yemenite Midrash HaBeiur (to Ex. 13:18) also seem to have had the “five” version. See also Baal HaTurim (to Ex. 13:18).
Like the word chamush, the word chalutz also means “armed.” In fact, when Moses originally stipulated with the Tribes of Gad and Reuben that they send soldiers to lead the rest of the Jews in conquering the Holy Land proper, those armed men were called chalutzim (Num. 32:30, 32:32, Deut. 3:18). The term chalutz in this military sense appears seventeen times in the Bible, mostly in the Books of Numbers.
*For more about the words chamush, chalutz and mezuyan, please consult with the full version of this article available at: https://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
