StrongerBible

ḥarishi

חֲרִישִׁי

HebrewH2759“scorching, sultry, ...”

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Jon 4:8
Word studyResearch-gradekhah-ree-SHEEadjective

What ḥarishi means

scorching: describing the searing, stifling east wind God sent against Jonah, though the word's precise force is uncertain

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyObscure

This word turns up exactly once in the Hebrew Bible, at Jonah 4:8, where it describes the east wind God sends against his sulking prophet. Almost everyone agrees what the wind is: the sirocco, the dry desert blast that sweeps in off the eastern wastes and that the Hebrew Bible repeatedly puts to work as an instrument of judgment. What no one can settle is what this one adjective adds to it.

The difficulty is that the root behind the word belongs to two different Hebrew verbs, and neither means "hot." One means "to plow" and the other means "to be silent"; a single spelling (חָרַשׁ) covers both. Hebrew has no verb of this shape meaning "to scorch": for that it uses other words, such as "to be scorched" (חָרַר). So the familiar English "scorching" describes what the wind does rather than translating what the word says.

That leaves three respectable readings, each with a long pedigree:

  • "Scorching" or "burning," following the ancient Greek and Latin translators, who rendered the wind by its effect on a body.
  • "Sultry" or "still," following the old Jewish reading that ties the word to being silent, since a sirocco's cruelty is exactly the dead, breathless air it brings.
  • "Slashing" or "cutting," following the reading that ties the word to plowing (the noun for plowing time is חָרִישׁ), and taking the wind as violent enough to tear apart the shelter Jonah had built.

Whichever is right, the word does the same work in the story. This wind is the fourth thing God appoints against Jonah, after the fish, the plant, and the worm, and it completes the stripping away of every comfort until the prophet would rather die than watch a city live.

Jon 4:8

What scholars say about ḥarishi

חֲרִישִׁית (Jonah 4:8, feminine, agreeing with רוּחַ) is a hapax whose sense must be reconstructed, since no Semitic root חרשׁ III "to be hot" is attested. BDB declares the meaning "wholly dubious" and declines to explain it, citing Wellhausen; TWOT (760e) lists "harsh, hot, sultry, silent, meaning uncertain." Morphologically it is a qatîl-pattern adjective extended by the nisbah suffix, parallel to נָכְרִי and עִבְרִי. Four derivations compete. (1) From חרשׁ II "be silent": the Targum renders רוּחַ קִדּוּם שְׁתִיקְתָּא, and b. Gittin 31b, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Gesenius, Klein and Uriel Simon follow, yielding "sultry" (Simon cites Job 37:17, where oppressive heat coincides with a stilled earth); this is the sense of the word in Modern Hebrew. (2) A contextual paraphrase "scorching," which is what LXX (πνεύματι καύσωνος συγκαίοντι), the Vulgate (vento calido et urenti) and the Peshitta effectively did, and which Wolff, Stuart, Limburg, Alexander and Youngblood continue, situating the word in the pattern of the destructive east wind of judgment (Gen 41:6; Exod 14:21; Hos 13:15; Ezek 17:10; 19:12). (3) From חרשׁ I "plow, cut in": Sasson (Anchor Bible) connects חָרִישׁ "plowing time" and argues for a slashing, crop-splitting wind that destroys Jonah's booth between vv. 5 and 8, with rabbinic precedent in Rav Yehuda's wind "that plows furrows in the sea"; Alter follows with "slashing." Hitzig's calendrical variant yields an "autumnal" sirocco. (4) Emendation: HALOT proposes חֲרִיפִית (√חרף "be sharp"), and BDB reports Steiner's חֲרִיסִית (from חֶרֶס "sun"); the UBS Handbook rejects the former, and neither BHS nor BHQ alters MT, Gelston's BHQ apparatus flagging the word as uncertain rather than corrupt. Comparative evidence supports "plow" (Ugaritic ḥrṯ, Arabic ḥaraṯa, Akkadian erēšu) or "be silent" (Akkadian ḫarāšu, Arabic ḫarisa, Syriac ḥreš), never "scorch"; Arabic ḥarra "heat" belongs to a different root, and sirocco derives from Arabic šarqiyya "easterly." The referent is nonetheless agreed across the commentaries: the sirocco or khamsin, here the fourth object God appoints against Jonah, and (per Trible) part of a wind inclusio with 1:4.

Where scholars disagree about ḥarishi

What חֲרִישִׁית means in Jonah 4:8, and which root it derives from. The word occurs only there, and no Semitic root חרשׁ meaning "to be hot" is attested, so the widespread gloss "scorching" cannot be established etymologically.

  • majorityA contextual gloss "scorching, burning," describing the wind by its effect without committing to a root. This is what LXX (πνεύματι καύσωνος συγκαίοντι), the Vulgate (vento calido et urenti) and the Peshitta did, and it dominates modern English commentary and translation.; Hans Walter Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah: A Commentary, Continental Commentaries (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 172-173; Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, Word Biblical Commentary 31 (Waco: Word, 1987), 505-506; James Limburg, Jonah: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 94-96
  • minorityFrom חרשׁ II "to be silent," hence a still, stifling, sultry wind. This is the traditional Jewish reading, transmitted by Targum Jonathan (רוּחַ קִדּוּם שְׁתִיקְתָּא), b. Gittin 31b, Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Kimchi, and it stands behind RSV, NRSV and NJPS "sultry."; Uriel Simon, Jonah, JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999), 44-46, citing Job 37:17; Kevin J. Cathcart and Robert P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets, Aramaic Bible 14 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989), 108; Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Jerusalem: Carta, 1987), s.v. חֲרִישִׁי
  • minorityFrom חרשׁ I "to plow, cut in," via the noun חָרִישׁ "plowing time," hence a slashing, crop-splitting wind violent enough to destroy Jonah's booth between 4:5 and 4:8. Rabbinic precedent is Rav Yehuda's wind that plows furrows in the sea (b. Gittin 31b).; Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretations, Anchor Bible 24B (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 303-308; Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, vol. 2, Prophets (New York: Norton, 2019), notes at Jonah 4:8
  • minorityThe Masoretic form is a scribal error and should be emended: HALOT reads חֲרִיפִית (from חרף "to be sharp"), while BDB reports Steiner's חֲרִיסִית (from חֶרֶס "sun"). No critical edition adopts either, and BHQ flags the word as uncertain rather than corrupt.; HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 353; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), 362, citing H. Steiner
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), 362, s.v. חֲרִישִׁיlexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 353, s.v. חֲרִישִׁיlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), s.v. חֲרִישִׁיlexicon
  • R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1980), entries 760, 760e, 761theological-dictionary
  • G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. V (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), articles on חרשׁ I and חרשׁ IItheological-dictionary
  • Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretations, Anchor Bible 24B (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 302-308commentary
  • Uriel Simon, Jonah, JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999), 44-46commentary
  • Hans Walter Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah: A Commentary, Continental Commentaries (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 172-173commentary
  • Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, Word Biblical Commentary 31 (Waco: Word, 1987), 505-506commentary
  • James Limburg, Jonah: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 94-96commentary
  • Kevin J. Cathcart and Robert P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets, Aramaic Bible 14 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989), 108reference-work
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Jerusalem: Carta, 1987), s.v. חֲרִישִׁיdictionary
  • Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, vol. 2, Prophets (New York: Norton, 2019), notes at Jonah 4:8commentary
  • David J. Clark, Norm Mundhenk, Eugene A. Nida, and Brynmor F. Price, A Handbook on the Book of Jonah (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), on Jonah 4:8reference-work
  • Anthony Gelston, ed., Biblia Hebraica Quinta, fasc. 13: The Twelve Minor Prophets (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2010), apparatus at Jonah 4:8reference-work

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of חֲרִישִׁי

f s absolute

חֲרִישִׁית

Jon 4:8