חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת (hafarferet) — mole (the animal)
Etymology
The word חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת is a case study in compounded linguistic errors. The form חַפֹּר פֵּרוֹת (appearing in the Masoretic text of Isaiah 2:20) puzzled readers for centuries — the phrase "to dig fruit" makes little sense in context. The mystery was resolved in 1947 with the discovery of the Great Isaiah Scroll at Qumran, dating to approximately 100 BCE and thus the oldest biblical manuscript by roughly a thousand years. It reads חפרפרות — a single word meaning a certain creature — confirming that the Masoretic reading was corrupted.
Jerome, translating the Hebrew Bible into Latin around 400 CE, correctly intuited that חַפֹּר פֵּרוֹת was a creature name and connected it to the root ח-פ-ר ("to dig"). He translated it as talpa — the European mole (Talpa europaea). Rashi endorsed this identification and described the creature in Old French as "talpes" (moles). From this point, the association of חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת with the burrowing mammal became standard, even though European moles have never lived in the Land of Israel. The animal that actually burrows through Israeli soil is the blind mole rat (חֹלֶד, Spalax ehrenbergi), a rodent unrelated to true moles.
The Haskalah-era search for a Hebrew name for the mole produced confusion: Baruch Linda (1788), Yosef Sheinhak (1841), and Mendele Mocher Sforim (1862) used תִּנְשֶׁמֶת; Yehuda Ben-Ze'ev's dictionary (1808) listed both תִּנְשֶׁמֶת and חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת; Yitzhak Sivenberger (1846) used אִישׁוּת and חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת. By the early twentieth century, despite Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's hesitations (he used חֲפַרְפָּרָה in 1901 then dropped it in favor of אֵשׁוּת and חֹלֶד), the form חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת had won out in popular usage.
The correct identification of the biblical creature was proposed by scholar Saul Lieberman in a 1965 article in the journal Leshonenu. He argued that ח-פ-ר in the biblical word means not "to dig" but "to search for" (as in Job 39:29: "from there it searches for food"), making חַפֹּר פֵּרוֹת mean "searcher of fruit." He identified the creature as a bat — supported by the Talmudic Yerushalmi phrase "the fox that searches for fruit dies," where "fox" (שועל עפר) appears to mean a flying fox or bat, and where עפר is the Galilean dialect variant of חפר (a known consonantal swap in northern Hebrew dialects). Bats were indeed paired with idols in the wider ancient Near Eastern world.
An additional complication: many Hebrew speakers mispronounce the word, giving the second פ a light (soft) sound, when grammatical rules require it to be pronounced with a dagesh (hard p).
Key Quotes
"בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יַשְׁלִיךְ הָאָדָם אֵת אֱלִילֵי כַסְפּוֹ... לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת וְלָעֲטַלֵּפִים" — ישעיהו ב', כ' (נוסח המסורה, משובש)
"...לְהַחְפַּרְפָּרוֹת וְלָעֲטַלֵּפִים" — מגילת ישעיהו, קומראן, ~100 לפנה"ס (הגרסה הנכונה)
"מיני שרצים שחופרין הארץ שקורין ׳טלפש׳ בלעז" — רש"י, פירושו לישעיהו ב', כ'
Timeline
- c. 700 BCE: Isaiah composes the verse; original word likely חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת
- c. 100 BCE: Great Isaiah Scroll (Qumran) preserves the reading חפרפרות
- c. 400 CE: Jerome translates the word as Latin talpa (mole) in the Vulgate
- 1040–1105: Rashi endorses the mole identification, using Old French "talpes"
- 1788: Baruch Linda's Reshit Limudim uses תִּנְשֶׁמֶת for the mole
- 1808: Ben-Ze'ev's dictionary lists both תִּנְשֶׁמֶת and חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת
- Late 19th–early 20th century: Competing Hebrew terms for mole in use
- 1901: Ben-Yehuda uses חֲפַרְפָּרָה in his pocket dictionary; later switches to אֵשׁוּת/חֹלֶד
- Early 20th century: חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת wins out in popular use
- 1947: Great Isaiah Scroll discovered, confirming the original reading
- 1965: Saul Lieberman argues in Leshonenu that the biblical creature was actually a bat
Related Words
- חֹלֶד — the blind mole rat (Spalax), the actual burrowing animal of Israel; also a biblical word
- תִּנְשֶׁמֶת — biblical word (Leviticus 11:18,30); variously identified as mole, chameleon, or barn owl
- עַטַּלֵּף — bat; mentioned alongside חֲפַרְפֶּרֶת in Isaiah 2:20