By Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein
When the miraculous occurrence of the Burning Bush piqued Moses’ curiosity and he approached the bush to get a closer look at the intriguing spectacle, Hashem called out to him saying, “Do not approach here [halom]. Remove your shoes from upon your feet…” (Ex. 3:5). In that verse, the Bible uses the relatively rare word halom to mean “here,” instead of the more common word poh which also means “here.” In fact, the word halom is so rare that it only appears eleven times in the Bible, while the word poh is much more common as it occurs a total of 82 times. In this essay, we explore the synonyms halom and poh, as well as other Hebrew terms that mean “here” — attempting to trace the respective etymologies of these words and honing in on the unique connotations borne by each word.
In expanding on the Burning Bush incident, the Talmud (Zevachim 102a) explains that Moses wished that Hashem would grant him the “kingship” (i.e., a form of leadership that would be inherited by his children), but Hashem denied that request by responding, “Do not approach here [halom].” The Talmud buttresses its assertion that the “kingship” was under discussion here by postulating that the term halom always connotes something to do with royalty. This postulate is based on a verse in which King David wonders why he merited to be anointed king, saying: “Who am I, O Hashem the G-d? And who is my household that You have brought me until here [halom]?” (I Sam. 7:18). Just as the word halom in the context of David refers to the kingship, so does that word in the context of Moses refer to the kingship. Maharsha (to Zevachim 102a) adds that this exegesis is also supported by the fact that in the Burning Bush narrative, the Torah uses the irregular term halom to mean “here,” instead of the more common word poh. A similar exegesis is also found in Bereishit Rabbah (§45:1) regarding the appearance of the word halom concerning Hagar’s vision (Gen. 16:13).
Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto extrapolates from this Talmudic discussion that the word halom differs from its ostensible synonyms in that it connotes “here” as an important, special place—as opposed to the other words discussed in this essay which could also connote “here” as a more banal or prosaic place. [See Maharsha (to Zevachim 102a) and HaKtav VeHaKabbalah (to Gen. 16:13) who go into detail in explaining different examples of how the word halom in the Bible connotes something related to “kingship” or something otherwise “royal/important” about the place referred to by the word “here.”]
In a similar vein, Rabbi Shamshon Raphael Hirsch (to Gen. 16:13) explains the word halom by comparing it to its semantic counterpart pa’am. Just the verb po’em refers to the rhythmic beat of a foot as one “walks” on the ground, and the noun pa’amon refers to a “bell” with the potential for a rhythmic sound (produced by the clapper banging against the shell), so does halmah refer to “breaking” or “beating” something as with a hammer. [For more about the word pa’am, see “Foot Festivals” (June 2018).]
Following that parallel, Rabbi Hirsch explains that just as a pa’am (“instance/time”) refers to a single step in the overall continuum of time, so does halom refer to a single step in the overall continuum of space, meaning halom marks a specific place to which one may be marching as finally “here.” As Dr. Lawrence Resnick fabulously sums up Rabbi Hirsch’s explanation of this word, “halom never means ‘here’; it means ‘hither’ (to here) … halom denotes a single spatial step forward, up to here.” The truth is that, as my colleague Rabbi Eliezer Cohn has pointed out, Rabbi Hirsch actually follows his great-uncle Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter (1743–1826) who already wrote in HaRechasim LeVikah (to Gen. 16:13) that halom always means “to here.”
While the classical lexicographers like Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak see the word halom as a derivative of the triliteral root HEY-LAMMED-MEM, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim takes a different approach. He sees the final MEM as extraneous to the ultimate root, thus arguing that the word actually derives from biliteral HEY-LAMMED. He further explains the core meaning of HEY-LAMMED as relating to “spreading out,” leading him to a whole listing of words that derive from that root that relate to that theme. For our purposes, that list includes the word halah (“there/so forth”), which refers to a distant place that covers a wide region that could be viewed as “spreading out” over a large space. In a similar sense, Rabbi Pappenheim explains that halom refers to “here” as a narrower region that spreads from a single point (“you are standing here”) and encompassing only its immediate environs, but nothing farther away. [For other words on Rabbi Pappenheim’s list of derivatives of HEY-LAMMED, see “Hebrew Hammers – Part 2/2” (Dec. 2024).]
Rabbi Yosef Grayever of Ostrow (1808–1898) sees the core meaning of HEY-LAMMED as “separation,” and sees halom in the sense of someplace important as related to that because it is “separated” from the rest. To give Rabbi Grayever’s explanation justice, we will need to devote a full article to treating his understanding — something I hope to do in the future.
Let’s now turn our attention to the word poh. The funny thing about that fairly common word is that it is sometimes spelled PEH-HEY (as in most of its occurrences), sometimes spelled PEH-VAV (twenty times in Ezek. 41–42), and once spelled PEH-ALEPH (Job 38:11). Because of this, there is a dispute among the early triliteralist lexicographers as to the word’s root: Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach (in his Sefer HaShorashim) and Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (Machaberet HeAruch) trace the word to the biliteral root PEH-VAV, while Radak (in his Sefer HaShorashim) traces it to the biliteral root PEH-HEY. Menachem Ibn Saruk in Machberet Menachem takes a third approach, tracing poh to the monoliteral root PEH (as that letter is the lowest common denominator among all spellings of the word).
Like Radak, Rabbi Pappenheim traces the word poh to the biliteral root PEH-HEY, whose core meaning is “mouth” (peh). The way he explains it, the place denoted as “here” is metaphorically similar to a mouth in that it is an opening or means for one to reach another place, just as the mouth is an opening by which things can enter or exit the body.
As we mentioned earlier, Biblical Hebrew uses a few more terms to express the concept of “here,” each with its own nuances and contexts of usage. The term heinah in the sense of “here” appears when Joseph told his brothers, “You shall bring my father down here [heinah]” (Gen. 45:13), emphasizing a distinct destination. Similarly, David was warned by the Jebusites, “You shall not come here [heinah]” (II Sam. 5:6), and Abraham’s descendants were promised a future return after their exile: “In the fourth generation, they shall return here [heinah]” (Gen. 15:16). Heinah also appears in poetic or descriptive contexts, such as when Elisha split the water, causing it to divide “here and there [heinah v’heinah]” (II Kgs. 2:14), or when Jeremiah described exiles seeking the path “here” (heinah) to Zion (Jer. 50:5). The word zeh has a broader meaning of “this,” but is occasionally used to mean “here” (i.e., “this place”) in specific contexts. For instance, Balaam invited Balak’s messengers to “stay here [zeh]” (Num. 22:19), and Moses instructed the spies to “go up here [zeh]” (Num. 13:17). In another example, King Saul commanded the people to slaughter their cattle “here” (I Sam. 14:34), emphasizing that the action should be performed on the spot and not elsewhere. Finally, koh typically means “so/thus” or “such/like,” but occasionally functions as “here” in specific contexts. Examples abound: Jacob directed his household to “set here [koh]” the items before him (Gen. 31:37), and the Israelites traveled “a day’s journey here [koh]” (Num. 11:31). Like heinah and zeh, koh also connects to broader meanings, illustrating its versatility.
As we will explain, these additional words, while overlapping in meaning, reflect different shades of “here” in Biblical Hebrew, shaped by context and connotation. Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (a 13th century Spanish scholar), in his book Chotam Tochnit on Hebrew synonyms, writes that while the words po and halom mean “here” in the strictly spatial sense, the word heinah differs in that not only does it refer to “here” in a spatial sense, but it is also often borrowed to mean “here” (i.e., “now”) in a temporal sense. For example, when Hashem told Abraham that after the Egyptian exile, his descendants would conquer the Holy Land, He said: “And the fourth generation will return heinah [here] because the sins of the Amorites have not been filled until heinah [now]” (Gen. 15:16). Although in that verse, the first time heinah appears it means “here” in the spatial sense, the second time the word appears it means “now,” not “here.” Hashem’s point was that the Amorites’ sins had not yet reached a critical mass that made them deserving of being removed from the Holy Land. Similarly, when Jacob said that he had not seen his son (Joseph) “until heinah” (Gen. 44:28), he meant that the entire time since Joseph’s disappearance, he had not seen him. Rabbi Bedersi also notes that the word heinah in this context should not be confused with its homonym heinah (found for example in Gen. 6:2, 21:29, II Sam. 17:28), which is a form of the word hein (“they/them” in feminine form).
To differentiate between the words poh and zeh in the sense of “here,” Rabbi Luzzatto draws a semantic distinction between a general term for a given place (qua) and a more specific spot within a general location (qui). Given that paradigm, he explains that the word poh refers to a more specific place. Examples of such usage in the Bible include when Abraham told Eliezer before the Binding of Isaac to return “here” with the donkey (Gen. 22:5), when Hashem told Moses to stand “here” with Me on Mount Sinai (Deut. 5:27), and when Moses declared that the Covenant at the Plains of Moab applies not only to those “here” but also to those who were not “here” (Deut. 29:14). In all these cases, poh is used to denote “here” because the antecedent refers to a very specific place. In contradistinction to this, he explains that the word zeh when meaning “here” refers to a less specific place, for example, when Judah wished to pay the “prostitute” that he visited, but was told “there was no prostitute in zeh [“this general area”]” (Gen. 38:21–22).
With this distinction in place, Rabbi Luzzatto offers an intriguing explanation of a word-switch in the Bible that occurs when describing Balak’s attempts to persuade Balaam to curse the Jews. At first, Balak sent a group of emissaries to Balaam to convince him to accept the devious mission, and Balaam seemed open to their request, saying “Sleep over the night here [poh]” so that he could confer with Hashem in a nocturnal prophecy (Num. 22:8). When Balaam then declined Balak’s request, Balak sent another, larger, and more prominent envoy to Balaam. This time, when Balaam told them to stay the night “here,” he used the word zeh instead of poh (Num. 22:19). Why did Balaam switch from poh to zeh?
Rabbi Luzzatto accounts for this change in verbiage by explaining that when the original emissaries arrived at Balaam’s home, he was able to host them and they were lodged within his home, so the more specific poh is used as the referent is a more specific place (i.e., Balaam’s home within the city where Balaam lived). However, when the second envoy arrived, they were too numerous and too posh for him to host in his own house, so they were hosted elsewhere in the city wherein Balaam lived. For this reason, the less specific word for “here” — zeh — is used in this context.
Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer offers a similar explanation when sharpening the difference between poh and heinah, arguing that po denotes a more specific “here,” while heinah denotes “here” in a more general way. Moreover, he writes that the word po is more appropriate in dialogue when speaking to another person who is “here” with the speaker, while the word heinah is more fit to be used when the listener himself is not yet “here.”
Rabbi Luzzatto further sharpens the differences between the words heinah, poh, and zeh when used to specify a location as “here.” He asserts—and offers various Biblical prooftexts to that effect—that heinah is only used when referring to “here” as the end-point of something that had travelled from elsewhere until it has reached “here.” It is often used when referring to somebody coming “here,” ostensibly from somewhere else (for examples, see Josh. 2:2, Jud. 16:2, II Sam. 5:6, II Kgs. 8:7, Ezek. 40:4, and I Chron. 11:5). By contrast, the terms poh and zeh refer to “here” in a more static context and do not necessarily imply any comparison or contrast with a different location. [It should be noted that Rabbi Luzzatto’s take on the words mentioned in this article is cited by the Malbim in his work Yair Ohr on Hebrew synonyms.]
As mentioned above, another word that sometimes means “here” in Biblical Hebrew is koh. For example, when Balam told Balak to stand “here” (near his burnt-sacrifices), he used the word koh (Num. 23:15; see also II Sam. 18:30). Rabbi Luzzatto claims that the Biblical koh differs from the other terms in discussion in that it does not quite refer directly to “here,” but to somewhere which is very close to “here” (seemingly based on the prefix KAF in the sense of “like/as”). Either way, the standard word for “here/now” in Mishnaic Hebrew is kan, which is understood to be a cognate of koh. Rabbi Chaim Yehoshua Kasovsky explains that the letter ALEPH in the word kan is simply there to differentiate it from the word kein (“yes/indeed/likewise”).
Targum often uses the word kah (spelled KAF-ALPEH) to render koh, while Targum uses the word halcha to render halom (Ex. 3:5, Jud. 18:3) and heinah (Gen. 45:5, Josh. 2:2, 3:9). A cognate of halcha famously appears in the Talmud (Bava Metzia 4a), when a person responds to the claim that he owes the claimant money by replying that he only owes part of the money claimed “and here [heilach] it is.” The discussion centers around whether or not this on-the-spot-payment constitutes a partial admission to the claimant’s initial claim.
Targum also uses the word hacha (which is also common in Talmudic Aramaic) as an Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew words poh (Gen. 19:12, 22:5, Ruth 4:1) and heinah (Gen. 15:6, Josh. 2:2). Interestingly, in his work Cheshek Shlomo, Rabbi Pappenheim writes that Rabbinic Hebrew collapses the two Biblical Hebrew words po and halom into one Rabbinic Hebrew word kan by using the word kan instead of po and l’kan instead of halom.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is an author and freelance researcher based in Beitar Illit. He studied in Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles, the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Beth Medrash Govoha of America in Lakewood, and received semichah from leading rabbis. He also holds an MA in Jewish Education from Middlesex University/London School of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Klein authored two popular books that were published by Mosaica Press, as well as countless scholarly articles published in various venues. His articles on Hebrew synonyms are commissioned by Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem and have appeared on their website since 2016.
