The giving of the Torah in the midbar gives me the opportunity to address this interesting word.
It is very easy to intuit that the root of this word is D-B-R. (A typical way that Hebrew forms its nouns is by taking a three-letter root and adding M to the front.) But the next step is much harder: what meaning of DBR generated the noun MDBR?
Of course, we all know the verb DBR: “to speak.” Could a MDBR fundamentally be a place where people went to speak (to themselves!)? Creative but unlikely. We also see DBR as one of the ten plagues: the plague of pestilence (dever). Could a MDBR fundamentally be a place of pestilence? Again, creative but unlikely.
Most scholars who analyze this word suggest a different solution, based on a third way that DBR is used in Tanach. It is used as a verb that means “to push out and drive away.” See II Chr. 22:10 and its parallel at 2 Kings 11:1. (Based on this meaning, a later meaning also developed: to subdue/rule over. See Psalms 47:4: yadber amim tachteinu.)
When a shepherd is out with his animals, what he is doing is pushing them from behind and leading them in this manner. It seems that fundamentally a midbar is a place where one goes to push and lead one’s animals. Even though we are used to thinking of a midbar as a dry area, i.e., a desert like midbar Sinai, fundamentally it could have been any wide and open area which was used for pasturing animals. As Shadal writes in his commentary to Exodus 3:1: “Perhaps because the term midbar was used for places of pasturage with no houses or trees but only wide, open space, the term was retained for dry desert places which are likewise wide and open without houses or trees.” Radak, in his Sefer Ha-Shorashim, also understands midbar as a place where one leads animals, based on this push-drive-lead meaning of DBR.
We now understand the origin of the word midbar. We also see that the letters DBR have at least 3 entirely different meanings in Tanach: speaking, pushing, and pestilence. This is a strong proof against those who claim that words composed of the same three letters in Hebrew must always be related. (There is usually such a relationship, but not always.)
Finally, an interesting issue is whether the word for bee, devorah, has some relation to the speak meaning of DBR. I have seen it suggested that the root DBR originally meant “to buzz or to hum” before it meant “to speak,” and that this is the relation to the word devorah!
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I would also like to briefly discuss the word Torah. Can you guess the root of Tav, Vav, Resh, He? It is yod, resh, he. This is because when the yod is in the first position it usually changes to a vav. The tav in front is what turns the verb into a noun. Now that we have identified the root, what does the root YRH mean? Interestingly, this root has two meanings: 1) to instruct, and 2) to throw, cast or shoot. Is it possible to unify both of these meanings? Perhaps. Both are a form of guiding. A more creative unification is suggested in the Mandelkern concordance: A teacher is casting the stone of wisdom towards his student!
Finally, I cannot resist mentioning a comment of Rav S. R. Hirsch. He is unique in giving a different root for Torah. In his comm. to Gen. 16:5 he discusses the root HRH which we know is a root related to seed and conceiving. He suggests that teaching and Torah come from this root, as teaching means “to plant a spiritual seed in someone”!
Mitchell First is an attorney and Jewish history scholar. His recently published book: Esther Unmasked: Solving Eleven Mysteries of the Jewish Holidays and Liturgy (Kodesh Press, 2015) is available at the Judaica House in Teaneck and at amazon.com. He can be reached at [email protected]
By Mitchell First
For more articles by Mitchell First, and information on his books, please visit his website at rootsandrituals.org.
