טְחוֹרִים (tkhórim) — hemorrhoids
Etymology
The word טְחוֹרִים entered Hebrew by a circuitous route rooted in biblical ambiguity. In 1 Samuel 5–6, the Philistines who captured the Ark of the Covenant were struck by a plague involving עֳפָלִים (or עֲפֹלִים). They made golden replicas of these עֳפָלִים and sent them back with the Ark. The word appears only here and in a list of diseases in Deuteronomy 28:27, and its meaning is genuinely unknown. Arabic has a cognate ʿafal denoting a swelling or protrusion in the genital region, but this does not provide a definitive identification.
The ancient Greek translation (Septuagint, 2nd century BCE) rendered עֳפָלִים as ἕδρα ("seat, hindquarters"), suggesting the translators perceived a rectal or anal ailment. The Aramaic Targums — Onkelos, Yonatan, and Neofiti (1st–5th centuries CE) — all translated עֳפָלִים as טְחוֹרִין. The Syriac Peshitta used the same word with a meaning "anus" attested in Syriac sources. The Latin Vulgate (Jerome, late 4th c.) varied: "the hidden part of the buttocks," "protruding rotting intestines," and "anus." The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius (late 1st c.) described the same plague as dysentery.
The Masoretic tradition made the equivalence official: עֳפָלִים is one of the words listed under qere (to be read differently from what is written). Whenever the word appears, readers are instructed to say טְחוֹרִים instead — and in two later verses of the same story (1 Samuel 6:11, 17), the scribal substitute טְחוֹרִים was actually copied into the written text, an apparent scribal error where the marginal qere crept into the ketiv. The Talmud itself never calls hemorrhoids עֳפָלִים or טְחוֹרִים — it uses the term תַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת — but this did not prevent the tradition from solidifying. Rav Saadia Gaon (882–942 CE) definitively identified the biblical word with the condition known in Arabic as بواسير (bawāsīr), i.e., hemorrhoids, and by the late 10th century the physician Shabbetai Donnolo was using טְחוֹרִים as the standard Hebrew medical term for the condition. This usage has persisted to the present.
An alternative tradition briefly surfaced in 19th-century Hebrew journalism: Yiddish had borrowed the Aramaic word as tekhvir, meaning "rat" (the rodent), and a few Hebrew newspaper articles used טְחוֹרִים in that sense — but the usage never caught on. The scholarly debate about what עֳפָלִים actually meant in antiquity remains open; in 2007, archaeologist Aren Maeir proposed, based on clay phallus-shaped artifacts found at Ashkelon and Gath, that עֳפָלִים referred to the male genitalia, and that the Philistines' golden replicas were figurines of that kind.
Key Quotes
"החסידה זו דיה לבנה. למה נקרא שמה חסידה? שעושה חסידות עם חברותיה" — רב יהודה, תלמוד בבלי, חולין ס"ג ב' [context: Talmud does not use טחורים for the condition]
"צפרדעים, חומטים, חתולים וטחורים העולים לאלפים על שולחן הכינזעזים" — המגיד, אפריל 1857 [using the word in the sense of "rats," from Yiddish]
Timeline
- 2nd century BCE: Septuagint translates עֳפָלִים as ἕδρα ("seat/hindquarters")
- 1st–5th centuries CE: Aramaic Targums translate עֳפָלִים as טְחוֹרִין
- Late 4th century: Jerome's Vulgate varies between "anus," "buttocks," and "intestines"
- 882–942 CE: Saadia Gaon identifies עֳפָלִים/טְחוֹרִים with Arabic بواسير (hemorrhoids)
- Late 10th century: Shabbetai Donnolo uses טְחוֹרִים as a standard medical term
- Medieval: Masoretic qere tradition formalizes the substitution of טְחוֹרִים for עֳפָלִים
- 1857: Hebrew press briefly uses טְחוֹרִים to mean "rat" (from Yiddish tekhvir); usage fades
- 2007: Archaeologist Aren Maeir proposes עֳפָלִים meant male genitalia, based on Philistine artifacts
Related Words
- עֳפָלִים / עֲפָלִים — the biblical word replaced by טְחוֹרִים; meaning unknown
- תַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת — Talmudic term for what we today call hemorrhoids
- בַּוָּאסִיר — Arabic term for hemorrhoids (Saadia Gaon's gloss)
- עֹפֶל — fortification/mound in Jerusalem (unrelated root, despite similar spelling)