The root עטף is used in the blessing over the טלית: “lehitatef betzitzit.” Also, in my shul, we are regularly reciting Psalm 142 and it appears there as well, further piquing my interest. The root עטף appears 17 times in Tanach. It has two different meanings: 1) “faint, feeble” and 2) “cover.” Can we determine a relationship between these meanings?

I should also point out that the root עלף also has these same two meanings, and the same relationship issue!

Here are the verses in which the root עטף has a “cover” meaning:

Psalms 65:14: “The meadows are clothed with sheep; the valleys יעטפו with grain … ”

Psalms 73:6: “Therefore pride is as an ornament around their neck; violence covers them like a garment.”

Isaiah 3:22: מעטפות are mentioned here. From the context, it is clearly a type of clothing.

Here are the verses in which the root עטף has a “faint, feeble” meaning:

Genesis 30:42: “ובהעטיף the sheep, he (Jacob) would not place them there. Thus העטפים went to Lavan and the sturdy to Jacob.”

Eicha 2:11-12: “My eyes fail with tears, my inwards burn …; בעטף young children and sucklings in the broad places of the city. They say to their mothers: ‘Where is grain and wine?’ בהתעטפם like a dying individual … ”

Eicha 2:19: “Lift up your hands to Him for the life of your children, העטופים in hunger at the head of every street.”

Jonah 2:8: “בהתעטף alay nafshi, I remembered God; my prayer came to you … ” Jonah is describing what happened as he suffered inside the great fish.

Psalms 61:3: “From the end of the earth will I call unto You בעטף my heart … ”

Psalms 77:4: “When I think of God, I moan; when I speak (of God), ותתעטף ruchi … ”

Psalms 102:1: “A prayer of the afflicted when he is יעטף and pours forth his plea before God.”

Psalms 107:5: “Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted (תתעטף) within them.” The context is people lost and wandering in the desert.

Psalms 142:4: “בהתעטף alay ruchi, You know my path … ” and Psalms 143:4: “ותתעטף alay ruchi, my heart within me is yishtomem.”

While the meaning of our עטף root is a bit ambiguous in verse 142:4, its meaning in 143:4 is clear because of the second part of the verse. The person’s heart is “yishtomem.” This means something like “stunned, appalled.” (Soncino adds: “Benumbed by pain and worry so that it fails to function normally.”) If our root has the “faint” meaning at 143:4, almost certainly it has the same meaning in the almost identical phrase at 142:4. Also, all the other עטף verbs in the hitpael form in Tanach have the “faint” meaning.

There is one verse where the meaning of עטף can be either “cover” or “faint, feeble:” That is Isaiah 57:16, which has the phrase: “ruach milefanai yaatof.” See the commentary of Samuel David Luzzatto for the possible interpretations.

There is one more time that our root appears in Tanach. This is at Job 23:9: “yaatof yemin.” It probably means “turn to the side” here and probably reflects a third meaning of our root עטף. See the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon and Daat Mikra.

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Let us now turn to various etymology works and commentators:

The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon separates עטף into two different verbs: “envelop oneself” and “be feeble, faint.” It makes no attempt to connect them. (But in the case of עלף, it views the root as one verb and places “cover, faint” in the same entry! The Koehler-Baumgartner lexicon also takes this hybrid approach!)

Menachem Zevi Kaddari does the same thing for עטף as Brown-Driver-Briggs did. Two separate entries, with no attempt to connect them.

Ernest Klein—in his entry for עטף—writes that most scholars derive the “feeble, faint” meaning from the “cover” meaning. But he does not explain how. He is similarly vague in his entry for עלף.

I do agree that “cover” has a more concrete meaning and would likely have preceded the “feeble, faint” meaning if the two meanings were related.

Solomon Mandelkern is conflicted about what to do with עטף. He separates the meanings but then suggests that they are related, pointing to the similar phenomenon in the case of the root עלף and citing Radak (see below). Mandelkern keeps the two עטף sections within one large entry, but with a separation within the entry.

Radak believes that we can connect the meanings if we view the “faint” meaning differently: as a description of an individual who is folded over in pain and hunger. In this way, there is a “cover” aspect in the “faint” meaning. See, e.g., his Sefer HaShorashim. (Prior to Radak, Ibn Ezra also took this approach—as did some Rishonim after Radak.) Radak’s view is also cited in the ArtScroll Tanach Series, Tehillim (by Rabbi Feuer) on Psalms 102:1 and 142:4.

Rabbi Feuer then adds a different connection. The afflicted man is ashamed of his misery and attempts to hide and cover himself.

Rav S.R. Hirsch suggests that weakening of the spirit is described by the root עטף because the spirit is hiding behind (is covered by) the physical body. See his commentary to Psalms 61:3. (In contrast, in a state of spiritual vigor, the spirit is visible to the outside world through the flashing of the eyes.)

The Daat Mikra volumes make two suggestions that are similar. One is that when עטף describes a person without strength, it is a way of stating that their “koach hachayyim” is covered up. Their similar suggestion is that a very weak person is one whose identity has been smeared over and lost. See Daat Mikra to Yonah 2:8, Psalms 61:3 and Psalms 107:5.

I also wrote to the Academy of Hebrew Language for their thoughts and the one who responded advised that someone who is faint will often cover himself. (I had thought of this on my own before that but was not sure how reasonable this suggestion was.)

Finally, I happened to ask my daughter Rachel for her thoughts. She suggested that someone who is faint may feel “weighed down” by stress and “overwhelmed.” Both of these words have the image of stress coming from above and covering them. (I should consult her more often!)

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A few more thoughts:

Our Hebrew letter “ayin” is a merger of two different earlier letters. It would be very easy to suggest that the two עטף roots come from different “ayin’s,” and are not related. But the fact that we have a similar phenomenon in the root עלף makes me reluctant to suggest this. (Also, many believe that in Arabic too we have the same root meaning both “cover” and “faint.”)

In Tanach, the hitpael is used only in connection with the “feeble, faint” meaning. Yet our Sages took the hitpael form and used it in our blessing for the טלית, using it instead with the “cover” meaning!

The meaning of “feeble, faint” in the hitpael is difficult to understand. No one is making themselves be feeble or faint. But sometimes words that are in the nifal develop an added ת, and misleadingly look as if they should be understood in the hitpael. Probably this is what happened here. Daat Mikra to Psalms 102:1, note 2, subsection 3, seems to agree. I gave many examples of this phenomenon in my “Roots and Rituals,” page 245. One example is Proverbs 31:30: “isha yirat Hashem hi tithallal.” Despite the hitpael form, the woman is not praising herself.

I mentioned above that Menachem Zevi Kaddari does not unite our two meanings in his עטף entry. But he does unite them in his עלף entry. He is able to do this because he redefines the “feeble, faint” meaning in that entry. In his עטף entry, he called it חלש. But in his עלף entry he calls it: “chaser hakarah” (perhaps adopting something like the second approach of Daat Mikra). That meaning he is willing to connect on some level to a “cover” meaning.

עטה is another verb in Tanach that means “cover.”

Mitchell First can be reached at MFirstAtty@aol.com. His friend Mike Alweis reminds him that the Hebrew word for “bat” is עטלף and many understand it to mean “the cloaked animal.”