WHAT'S IN A WORD? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language
by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein
The Plain Meaning
After pulling off the upset and taking the blessings that Isaac had planned to give to his eldest son Esau, Jacob was advised to run away to his mother’s hometown of Harran and seek out a mate there. That place is sometimes also known as Padan Aram, which some commentators have interpreted to mean “the plain of Aram.” In this essay we will visit several Hebrew words for “plain,” many of which come up in the stories of Genesis concerning our forefathers. In doing so, we will seek out the respective etymologies of these different words and consider whether or not they are truly synonymous.
The place-name Padan Aram appears eleven times in the entire Bible — all in the second half of Genesis. Rashi and Ibn Ezra (to Gen. 25:20) explain that the word padan in that name means the same thing as sadeh (“field/flatland”). Indeed, when the prophet Hosea recalls the story of Jacob fleeing to Padan Aram, he refers to that place as Sdeh Aram (Hos. 12:13), using the construct form of the word sadeh. In light of this, it makes sense that Shadal (to Gen. 25:20) would write that padan is Aramaic for sadeh.
Similarly, Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffmann (to Gen. 25:20) explains that the word padan is an Aramaic term that is actually a loanword from the Nabatean/Arabic word feddan, which is a unit of measure of spatial area (like an acre, hectare, or square mile in English). Based on this, he explains that Padan Aram refers specifically to the “plain” that surrounds the town of Harran. As Rabbi Hoffmann notes, archeologists and geographers have actually confirmed that ancient Harran was located on a plain that is otherwise surrounded by mountains. Alternatively, Rabbi Ernest Klein in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew surmises that padan possibly derives from the Akkadian word padanu ("road/garden").
Another word for “plain” in Hebrew is mishor. It appears twenty-three times in the Bible (according to Avraham Even-Shoshan’s concordance). But this word is a bit tricky, because sometimes it doesn’t actually refer to a “plain” in the topographical sense, but rather refers to something “straight” in the moral sense. Ibn Janach and Radak in their Sefer HaShorashim trace both senses of the word mishor to the triliteral root YOD-REISH-SHIN, which gives us the word yashar (“straight/level”). This relates to a “plain,” which is a level area of land, as opposed to somewhere mountainous or full of craters. This word mishor, or more accurately its Aramaic cognate meishar, will play an important role in our ensuing discussion.
That discussion segues to an additional Hebrew word for “plain” that appears in the story of Abraham intervening in the war between the four kings (led by Chedarlomer) and the five kings (from the Sodom region). In that context, the Bible reports that Chedarlomer and the other three kings allied with him smote the Horites at Seir as far as Eil Paran (Gen. 14:6). Targum Onkelos and Bereishit Rabbah (§42:6) render the Hebrew place-name Eil Paran into Aramaic as Meishar Paran. Based on this, Rashi explains that Onkelos understood the word eil to be synonymous with meishar (“plain”).
Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (HaKtav VeHaKabbalah to Gen. 18:1) agrees with Targum Onkelos that both eil/elonei and mishor refer to a “plain,” but he argues that the two sets of terms are not quite synonymous: mishor refers to a "plain" in its own right, as a flat or straight parcel of land that has no hills or ditches that go up and down from the baseline. When focusing on a "plain" as simply a flat surface, it is quite possible that the plain in question is a dry and arid steppe, full of sand rendering it unsuitable for sowing or pasture. On the other hand, the term eil/elonei refers to a "plain" as an area that has importance in its own right, as it is specifically a fertile biome that is ripe for agriculture or animal grazing...
*To read the full article including discussion of additional words and more materials, please visit us online at: https://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
