Vayikra: Seeing Red (Part 3/3)
Two weeks ago, we inaugurated our three-part series that explores Hebrew and Aramaic words associated with the color “red.” Part I of that exploration focused on the Hebrew word adom, while Part II delved into other Hebrew terms for “red.” In this final installment, we will finish off this topic with a special focus on Aramaic words related to the color “red.”
Our first Aramaic word related to “red” actually occurs in Biblical Hebrew. In one particular passage, the Psalmist refers to wine with the adjective chamar (Ps. 75:9). Now, the Aramaic word for “wine” is actually chamar/chamra (as we discussed in an earlier essay “Words for Wine Part 2/2,” March 2022), but in this context, it does not make sense to interpret the Hebrew word chamar as “wine” because that word is supposed to be an adjective that describes some property of wine, and does not serve as a synonym for wine itself. In other words, it is something of a tautology to say “winey wine,” so the word chamar in this case must mean something other than just “wine.” Enter Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach and Radak in their respective Sefer HaShorashim (and Radak to Ps. 75:9), who explain that chamar here actually means “red.” They understand the word as primarily referring to the specific color characteristic of wine, and thus explain that it refers specifically to wine’s redness. Hence, chamar in Biblical Hebrew becomes another word for “red.”
By the way, Hebrew is not the only Semitic language in which this word means “red.” In Arabic as well, the word 'ahmar (achmar) means "red." This term is actually the origin of the Spanish place name Alhambra (in Granada, Spain), which was originally called al hamra ("the red [palace]") in Arabic.
Rabbi Ernest Klein writes that the Hebrew word chemar (“asphalt,” “bitumen”) is called so in allusion to its reddish-brown color. Likewise, he explains the term chomer (“matter/material”) as originally referring primarily to “clay,” which, of course, has a reddish hue (a similar point is made by Ibn Ezra in his "Long Commentary" to Ex. 2:3). He further suggests that the Hebrew words chamor (“donkey”) and yachmur (“roebuck”) also derive from this word for “red” in the sense that they refer to a “red animal.” As a parallel to this semantic development, Klein adduces the case of the Spanish word burro ("donkey"), which he asserts ultimately derives from the Late Latin burrus ("red"), which is itself a corruption of the Greek purros ("yellowish red" or "flame-colored"). [Interestingly, when discussing the English word roe (as in roebuck) in his etymological dictionary of English, Rabbi Klein does not link that word with the Indo-European root for “red” (see below), but rather sees it as derived from the Indo-European root rei- or reoi-, which mean "streaky" or "spotted."]
To me, it is interesting to note that a grandson of Seir the Horite (whose family settled in Mount Seir before that area was conquered by Esau and became the homeland of the Edomites) was named Chamran (I Chron. 1:41). This is another example of given names associated with the color “red” that appear in the context of the Edomites, as we’ve already seen several times in this series. In the Torah, Seir’s grandson has an alternate name, Chemdan (Gen. 36:26), which can be viewed as equivalent to Chamran (based on the interchangeability of the orthographically-similar letters REISH and DALET).
There is another word in Hebrew that can be explained as meaning “red” in light of Aramaic. The second commandment of the Decalogue states that one should not serve idolatry because Hashem is a "jealous god" (Ex. 20:4) and will therefore not tolerate such abominations. The term used to describe Him being “jealous/zealous” is a kana. Shadal (to Ex. 20:5) notes that the Peshitta (a translation of the Bible into an Aramaic dialect known as Syriac) twice uses an obscure Aramaic word for "red" that is spelled with the letters KUF-NUN-ALEPH, just like kana. This term is used once for rendering the Hebrew word chachlilei (Prov. 23:29) and once for rendering the word nichmaru (Lam. 5:10). We discussed the word chachlilei in Part II of this essay, and needless to say it means “red.” Based on this rare Syriac word, Shadal proposes that the core meaning of the Biblical Hebrew word kana is actually "red." Indeed, qani is used in Classical Arabic to describe a “deep crimson” or “dark red color,” often in poetic or literary contexts.
According to this, the Hebrew adjective kana refers to the physiological effects of jealousy, whereby one’s heart starts “heating up,” which causes a person’s face to become ruddy out of the indignation that somebody else has taken what is due to them. Obviously, because Hashem has no physical body, applying the word kana to Him is merely a linguistic borrowing and should not be taken literally as any statement of anthropomorphism. But Shadal’s point is that when Hashem is described as “jealous” when Jews worship other gods, the more accurate way of understanding it is that He is “angry” over such aberrations. To say it in a more colorful way, Hashem is not visited by the “green-eyed monster” (jealousy in Shakespearean idiom), but is rather “seeing red” (angry).
Turning to Aramaic proper, it should be noted that Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur in Meturgaman offers a whole list of cases in which the Targumim render the Hebrew words for “red” — adom (discussed in Part I) and chachlilei (discussed in Part II) — as sumak. That word is the standard term in Talmudic Aramaic for the color “red.” A famous example of such usage is when the Talmud states that one may not save one's life by killing somebody else because "what makes you see that your blood is redder (sumak)? Maybe that man’s blood is redder (sumak)?" (Pesachim 25b, Yoma 82b, Sanhedrin 74a). Likewise, when stating that the sun is red-colored at sunrise and sunset, the Talmud (Bava Batra 84a) writes that it is samka. Interestingly, Dr. Alexander Kohut in HaAruch HaShaleim points out that there seem to be several personal names in rabbinic sources that are derived from this Aramaic word for “red” — Sheila bar Sumki (Gittin 69a), Rabbi Abba Samuka (Jerusalemic Talmud Brachot 9:1), and Rabbi Chelbo ben Chalifei bar Simkay (Bereishit Rabbah §51:2).
When it comes to some of the other Hebrew terms for “red,” the Targumim actually prefer a different Aramaic term. That is, when rendering the Hebrew words shani (Gen. 38:30, Josh. 2:18) and tola (Isa. 1:18, Lam. 4:5) which refer to “red” (as discussed in Part II of this essay), Targum uses the word zehorit. This term also appears in the Mishnah, for example when discussing the red-colored string (leshon shel zehorit) that was tied to the head of the scapegoat used in the Yom Kippur services (Shabbat 9:3, Shekalim 4:2, Yoma 4:2; 6:6).
Now, the root of that Aramaic term zehorit, ZAYIN-HEY-REISH variously refers to “shining,” “illuminating,” and even the “moon.” But its specific connection to the color red is somewhat tenuous. Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi (in his dictionary of Rabbinic Hebrew) partially alleviates this issue by writing that zehorit refers to a sort of "red” that is especially “shiny,” or at least more so than other colors. [For more on the word zohar, see my earlier essay “Brilliant Prohibitions” (May 2021).]
Another word related to our discussion is gichor. This word first appears in the Mishnah (Bechorot 7:6), when stating that gichor is a blemish that disqualifies a Kohen from serving in the Temple, but does not disqualify an animal from being brought as a sacrifice. Similarly, the Tosefta (Brachot 7:3) rules that if one encounters a gichor, one should recite the blessing baruch mishaneh habriyot. Likewise, when Elkanah’s wife Hannah prayed for Hashem to grant her a son (who later turned out to be the prophet Samuel), she asked that her son not be “too tall or too short, too skinny or too fat, too white or too reddish [gichor], too intelligent or too senseless” (Brachot 31b). In all of these contexts, Rashi (to Brachot 31b, 58b, Bechorot 45b, Rashi to Brachot 59b) explains that gichor means “very red” (or perhaps “deep red”). Yet, the etymology of the Mishnaic Hebrew gichor is quite obscure, as it does not seem to be an actual Aramaic or Hebrew word. Dr. Alexander Kohut in Ha’Aruch HaShaleim sees it as being of Indo-Iranian origin, connecting this word with the Bactrian word cukhra and the Old Persian word cuhar, both of which apparently mean “red.” Rabbi Ernest Klein simply states that gichor is “of unknown origin.”
As an aside, the name of one of the family heads to return to the Holy Land in the time of Zerubbabel was Gachar (Ezra 2:47, Neh. 7:49). We can only speculate as to whether this means that Mr. Gachar was of reddish complexion.
Our final word for “red” relates to a word discussed at greater length in a previous essay. In the essay entitled “The Color Purple” (Feb. 2022), we discussed the Biblical Hebrew word argaman/argavan, and noted that there is good reason to think that that word refers to the color “red.” Shadal (to Ex. 25:4 in the www.AlHaTorah.orgedition) writes that the word argavan is a form of the word al-gavan, based on the interchangeability of the letters REISH and LAMMED. The term al-gavan means “the color” (with al serving as the definite article “the,” as it does in Arabic). The way he explains it, this is because the color red sticks out more than other colors, thus making it the superlative color.
Perhaps it is because of the ostentatious, attention-grabbing nature of the color red that the Rema (Yoreh Deah §178:1) rules that a Jew should not wear red clothes. Indeed, the Talmud (Brachot 20a) records the story of a rabbi who risked his life to make sure that a woman whom he thought was Jewish should not wear a red article of clothing called a karbalta, which literally means "rooster's crest" (as explained by Sefer HaAruch and Rabbeinu Chananel to Brachot 20a printed in the Wagschall edition).
Interestingly, various Yemenite exegetes (like Midrash Chefetz and Meor Ha'Afeilah to Ex. 25:4) follow the approach that argaman refers to a shade of red, and then feel the need to explain how argaman differs visually from tolaat shani which is also red. The way they explain it, argaman refers to yellowish-red (perhaps closer to what we might call orange), while tola’at shani is a stronger/deeper red (as we saw in the previous installment, cremine or crimson).
Before we conclude this three-part series, there is one more thing I want to discuss: In discussing various words for “red,” Rashi uses the Old French word russ as a translation of the Hebrew adom (Gen. 25:25, Lev. 13:39), gichor (Brachot 31b, 58b, 59b, Bechorot 45b), shachum (Gen. 30:32, Avodah Zarah 33b), sumka (Bechorot 45b), and tola’at shani (Gittin 69b). That Romance word derives from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root reudh- means “red,” which happens to be the ancestor of a whole bevy of English words: red, rose, rouge, rosy, and rust. In Latin, the PIE dh-sound turns into a b-sound to give us the word ruby (meaning “red,” used in English to refer to a certain type of red gemstone). Similarly, the Rubicon is a red river in Italy, so named because it is red due to natural iron deposits in its riverbank. The English word robust is derives from ruby, as it originally referred to a special type of oak that a “reddish” heartwood. Other related English words include rubor, rubicund, rubric, rubigo, rubus, rubescent, rubella, bilirubin.
There is also a whole slew of proper names whose onomastic meanings relate to the color “red” and are etymologically derived from these words: Reid, Rudolph/Rudolf, Randolph, Rudy, Royde, Roth, Rufus, Rufina, Rossi, Ross, Russel, Rusty, Rowan, Roux, Rousseau, and Barbarossa/Rothbard (which both literally mean “red beard”). I used to think that the feminine given name Roxanne is also related to the color “red.” But after looking into more, I see that this is not the case. Rather, the name of the historical Roxana (wife of Alexander the Great) was a Latinization of her actual Persian name, Roshanak. That Persian feminine name literally means “shiny” or “light.” The roshan- element appears in many different Persian surnames, including Roshanpour, Roshanzadeh, Roshanfar, and Roshangar. In light of the connection between “red” and “shiny,” perhaps Roxanne really is connected to “red” after all.
