In lamenting the exile of Judah after the destruction of the First Temple and how the Jews were subsequently harried by the nations of the world, the Book of Lamentations states: “All those who chased after her [the Kingdom of Judah] reached her between the mitzarim” (Lam. 1:3). Rashi follows the Midrash (Eichah Rabbah §1:29) in explaining that “between the mitzarim” refers to the three-week period bookended by the tragedies of the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av. This is why those three weeks are often called bein ha’mitzarim. In this explanation, Rashi interprets the word mitzarim as a cognate of tzarah (“sorrow,” “suffering”). But Rashi also offers another, contextual-literal interpretation that explains bein ha’mitzarim as referring to “between the boundaries,” meaning that the Jews were trapped by their enemies in situations from which they could not escape — as though they were stuck between two fences. To illustrate this point, Rashi uses the word gevul (“border”), while Targum and Mahari Kara (there) use the similar word techum to say the same thing. In this essay, we discuss the four words mitzarim, gevul, techum, and s’far, all of which seem to be synonyms that mean “border.”
Rabbi Yehuda Ibn Kuraish (a ninth century Spanish grammarian) in his Risala clarifies that mitzarim should be understood as the plural form of the word meitzar (“border”) found in Rabbinic literature. For example, this usage appears in Rabbinic Aramaic in the legal term dina d’bar mitzra (Ketubot 44a), whereby one who sells a field is legally obligated to offer to sell it first to the field’s neighbor before anybody else. Ibn Kuraish further notes that this word meitzar is not related to the Biblical Hebrew term meitzar — famously used in the passage, “From the straits [meitzar] I call out [to] Hashem” (Ps. 118:5) — as that word relates to tzar (“narrowness”) and denotes something slightly different.
That said, it should be noted that some commentators (like Ibn Ezra to Lam. 1:3 and Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim in Cheshek Shlomo) do actually connect mitzarim to the Biblical meitzar. We could explain that connection by realizing that a “border” essentially serves to narrow down the contours and boundaries of a given plot of land, so there is definitely a thematic connection between the two words.
With this in mind, we can think about the name Mitzrayim given to Ham’s second son (Gen. 10:6, I Chron. 1:8), who was the progenitor of the Egyptians. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Shain in Birkat Ish theorizes that Ham tried with all his might to make sure that there will be no in-fighting amongst his sons as there was between himself and his own brothers (as well as between Cain and Abel). To that end, he took pains to clearly delineate the borders between the territory of his eldest son Cush and his second Mitzrayim. This focus on “borders” is reflected in the very name Mitzrayim, as it was only when he was born that Ham felt the need to spell out Cush’s territorial boundaries very clearly. [For more about the word Mitzrayim in reference to Egypt, see “Escape for Patros” (April 2023).]
It is interesting to note that Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz explains that there is no Zohar on the three parshiyot always read during the bein ha’mitzarim period (Matot, Masei, and Devarim) because during those three weeks, our minds are “constricted” and “minimized” by mourning all the tragedies that we have suffered. In such a “narrow-minded” state of being, it is inappropriate to study the esoteric secrets of the Torah, so the Zohar did not comment on those pericopes.
When Hashem tells Moses to command the Jewish People about the borders of the Holy Land before they enter, the Bible uses the word gevul and its various inflections fourteen times in a span of twelve verses (Num. 34:1–12). The triliteral root GIMMEL-BET-LAMMED from which gevul derives also refers to the act of “limiting” by delineating the borders of what is acceptable and limiting the scope of what people can do. An example of this is when Hashem tells Moses at Mount Sinai to restrict (ve’higbaltah) the Jews’ movements to around the mountain (Ex. 19:12), a verb cognate of gevul is used (see HaKtav VeHaKabbalah to Ex. 19:12).
In his Sefer HaShorashim, Radak brings to light another derivative of this root in Biblical Hebrew: “Stonecutters” are called givlim (I Kgs. 5:32), which Radak explains relates to them giving a “boundary/border” to stones by cutting them down to size. Alternatively, Radak explains that givlim is a gentilic that refers to people from the city of Geval (Gebel, also known as Byblos), which is mentioned in Ezek. 27:9. Rabbi Yehoshua (Jeremy) Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation proposes a third explanation that sees the word givlim as a metathesized form of the word galav (“barber”), as both stonecutting and barbering involve cutting. [For more about the word galav and other related words, see “Haircut Time” (April 2022).]
It has long been noted by philologists like Wilhelm Gesenius that the Hebrew word gevul is a cognate with the Arabic word jabal (“mountain”). This is because mountains serve as natural borders between two polities or even simply between two plains. Interestingly, the Yemenite Jewish surname Jibli/Gibli — which derives from said Arabic word — is equivalent to the Hebrew last name Harari or the Yiddish/German family name Berg, as all those names mean “mountain” in their respective languages.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (to Ex. 7:27) argues that at its core, the word gevul actually refers to the whole area that lies within the borders, not just to the edge or borderline itself. With this, he explains the verbiage used when Hashem warned Pharaoh about the Plague of Frogs: “I will afflict your entire border [gevul] with frogs” (Ez. 7:27), which should not be taken as just referring to the edges of Egypt, but to the entire country. The same applies to Hashem’s warning to Pharaoh that He will bring locusts into Pharoh’s gevul (Ex. 10:4), as well as to the Torah’s injunction about having chametz on Pesach within “all your [i.e., the Jewish People’s] borders” (Ex. 13:7). These last two cases also refer broadly to an entire country, not just to the border region (see Yeriot Shlomo p. 836 and HaKtav VeHaKabbalah to Ex. 13:7). In offering this explanation, Rabbi Hirsch connects gevul with the phonetically-similar word yevul (“produce,” characterized by something that one brings into one’s domain, i.e. within one’s borders) based on the interchangeability of the letters GIMMEL and YOD.
Rabbi David Golumb sees the root of gevul (GIMMEL-BET-LAMMED) as a metathesized form of the triliteral BET-LAMMED-GIMMEL, which means “strengthening” and appears four times in the Bible (Amos 5:9, Ps. 39:14, Job 9:27, 10:20). He accounts for the connection between that and “borders” by noting that whatever was located on the border needed extra fortification and protection from nearby neighboring enemies.
Rabbi Avraham Rivlin points out an interesting dichotomy related to the root GIMMEL-BET-LAMMED. On the one hand, a gevul clearly marks the border that separates one area from another. On the other hand, verbs derived from GIMMEL-BET-LAMMED in Rabbinic Hebrew refer to “mixing/kneading” ingredients together (see Ohalot 2:2, Shabbat 24:3, Bava Metzia 10:5, Parah 9:5), which takes discrete elements and meshes them into one glob. This is seemingly the exact opposite of a border, which instead of unifying two entities serves to create a boundary between them and divide them. Rabbi Rivlin resolves this issue by explaining that at the same time that a border serves to separate one land from another, it also serves to unite the entirety of one land as falling within a shared boundary. Alternatively, HaKtav VeHaKabbalah (to Ex. 19:12) explains that gevul refers to the point of convergence between two separate domains, as the “border” where one ends is the same “border” where the other begins — so a gevul both separates and merges.
Then again, we may account for the diametrically-opposed meanings of GIMMEL-BET-LAMMED by noting that it is not uncommon for Hebrew roots to refer to something and its polar opposite. Indeed, we find many words that are etymologically related to their exact opposites (antonyms) in Hebrew. A classic example of this is the very word for “root,” in Hebrew shoresh, which also shares a root with the verb l’sharesh (“to uproot”). This is especially true because Hebrew words are stand-ins for the abstract concepts that they represent and are not just whimsical expressions whose antecedents happen to refer to specific things or actions. Accordingly, since words that are totally opposite are conceptually related (that is, inversely), it makes sense that in Hebrew they might stem from the same root.
The standard word for rendering the Biblical Hebrew gevul in Targumic Aramaic is techum/techoma (Gen. 10:19, 23:17, Ex. 19:12, 19:23, Deut. 19:4). This word was also used in Mishnaic Hebrew to refer to what falls within the bounds of a certain area. For example, it is used in the phrase techum Shabbat which refers to the area of 2,000 cubits outside the city-limits within which one may walk on Shabbat (see Eruvin 5:5, Beitzah 4:2, Sotah 5:3). Rabbi Ernest Klein in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew sees the Rabbinic Hebrew usage of techum as a loanword from the aforementioned Aramaic word, which he sees, in turn, as borrowed from the Akkadian tahumu.
Rabbi Benzion Chaim Lubetzki in Midrash Safah Echat sees techum as a metathesized form of the word chatum (“sealed”), as the space demarcated within the techum is “sealed” — so to speak — by its boundaries that surround it on all sides.
Rabbi David Golumb sees the TAV of techum as a radical, thus identifying its core root as CHET-VAV-MEM (“brown/red”). He somehow explains that as referring to the extra efforts needed to secure and fortify whatever is located on the border. This is similar to his explanation of gevul, and — as we will soon see — his explanation of s’far.
The word s’far typically refers to something located near the “border.” For example, the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:5) states that we do not destroy an Ir HaNidachat located at the s’far (i.e., near the border), because that would give the neighboring countries an easy way to infiltrate the Holy Land. Similarly, the Mishnah (Sotah 9:2) rules that one does not perform the Eglah Arufah ritual over finding a corpse near the s’far. This word is also used in Targum (to Gen. 49:13, Deut. 1:7, Zeph. 2:5-6) in a similar sense.
Although it seems that s’far in the sense of “border” only occurs in later Rabbinic Hebrew, there is one possible appearance of that term in the Bible: When describing the geographical territory allotted to the descendants of Shem, said land is said to stretch from Meisha (Mecca, according to Rabbi Saadia Gaon) to its border (sefarah, “to its s’far”) at Har HaKedem (Gen. 10:30). In that case, Targum Onkelos translates the Biblical Hebrew word used there as s’far, which leads Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (in HaKtav VeHaKabbalah to Lev. 23:16 and Iyyun Tefillah to Pesukei D’Zimra Ps. 147:5) to noting that this is the only instance of s’far in (Biblical) Hebrew. (It seems that most other commentators see the word sefarah as a proper noun that refers to a place-name.)
The etymology of the word s’far is not immediately clear, but Rabbi David Golumb conjectures that s’far (SAMECH-PEH-REISH) comes from the word prazi (PEH-REISH-ZAYIN), which is used in reference to the “fortification of a city-wall.” He justifies this connection by invoking the interchangeability of the letters SAMECH and ZAYIN and switching around of the order of the three consonants (metathesis). He further explains that cities which sat close to the borders were especially fortified, which is why the very word for “border” came to be s’far.
The great Kabbalist, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (known as Ramak), in Pardes Rimmonim (Shaar #8 ch. 2), explains the term sefirah in the context of the Ten Sefirot as referring to the manifestation of Hashem’s influx as perceived by man. He clarifies that while from Hashem’s perspective, He and His influx are infinite, from man’s point of view, each separate act of Him influencing the world can only be understood in a limited and restricted fashion. To that end, he compares the word sefirah to other words that use the SAMECH-PEH-REISH string. Most notable for our purposes, one of those words is sfar (“border”). Just like a border clearly outlines the limits of a given area, so does sefirah represent something which is in itself not limitless. Similarly, Ramak sees sefirah as similar to mispar (“number”), in that both are necessarily finite. Finally, he also sees sefirah as similar to sippur (“telling/story”) in that both can be spoken about — as opposed to Hashem Himself Who is infinite and therefore cannot be described by mere words. [We have discussed the root SAMECH-PEH-REISH many times already, including “When Just Counting Doesn’t Count” (May 2017), “Telling the Story” (April 2019), “Between Books and Scrolls” (Feb. 2022), and “Haircut Time” (April 2022)].
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.
