טְחוֹרִים (tehorim) — hemorrhoids

Etymology

The word טְחוֹרִים has a deeply roundabout origin rooted in the Book of Samuel and in the confusion of ancient translators about what exactly the Philistines suffered. First Samuel chapters 5–6 tells the famous story of the Ark of the Covenant's sojourn among the Philistines: after the Philistines captured the Ark and placed it in the temple of Dagon, a series of catastrophes followed. The idol of Dagon was found repeatedly toppled; and God struck the Philistines of Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron with עֳפָלִים — a word of unknown meaning. The Philistines eventually fashioned golden votive offerings in the shape of עֳפָלִים (and of mice) and sent the Ark back to Israel. The word עֳפָלִים appears only one other time in the Hebrew Bible, in a list of afflictions in Deuteronomy 28:27.

The meaning of עֳפָלִים is genuinely uncertain. The word is unrelated to עֹפֶל (a fortification name in Jerusalem). The closest cognate in related Semitic languages is Arabic ʿafl, which classical Arabic dictionaries define as a swelling or protrusion in the genital area. Ancient translators were divided: the Greek Septuagint (2nd century BCE, Alexandria) renders it with ἕδρα — "seat," "buttocks" — suggesting some kind of anal affliction. The Aramaic Targums (Jonathan, Onkelos, Neofiti) and the Syriac Peshitta (1st–5th centuries CE) all render עֳפָלִים as טְחוֹרִין. This Aramaic word is nearly always found only as a translation of the biblical עֳפָלִים, but in a handful of Syriac passages it appears independently with the sense of "anus."

The Latin Vulgate (Jerome, late 4th century) shows further variation: Jerome renders the word differently across the various occurrences — "the hidden part of the buttocks," "protruding and rotting entrails," and "anus." Josephus Flavius (late 1st century CE) had already described the same Philistine affliction as dysentery. The Talmud itself never calls hemorrhoids עֳפָלִים or טְחוֹרִים; in Talmudic sources, the condition is called תַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת (Berachot 55a).

Complicating matters further, the Masoretic tradition established the word טְחוֹרִים as a qere — a liturgical substitution to be spoken aloud whenever עֳפָלִים is written in the text, since עֳפָלִים was considered too coarse to pronounce publicly. In two later verses (1 Samuel 6:11 and 6:17) the word טְחוֹרִים appears in the text itself rather than עֳפָלִים — almost certainly because a scribe accidentally copied the oral qere into the written text (ketiv). The first scholar to explicitly identify עֳפָלִים/טְחוֹרִים as the condition we today call hemorrhoids was Saadia Gaon (10th century), who translated the word into Arabic as bawāsīr. By the late 10th century the medical writer Shabbetai Donnolo was using טְחוֹרִים as the standard Hebrew medical term for the condition. Medieval commentators consolidated this reading, and through them the word entered standard Hebrew usage.

There was a short-lived competing identification: in Yiddish the word "טכויר" (from טחור) was used to mean "rat" (the rodent). Following this Yiddish usage, 19th-century Hebrew newspapers occasionally used טְחוֹרִים to mean rats — for example, a report in Ha-Maggid in April 1857 listing animals eaten in China: "frogs, snails, cats and טחורים in the thousands." This usage did not survive. In 2007 archaeologist Aren Maeir proposed a new interpretation based on phallic clay vessels found in excavations at Ashkelon and Gath, suggesting that עֳפָלִים refers to the male organ — making the golden votive offerings phallic figurines. The matter remains unsettled.

Key Quotes

"צפרדעים, חומטים, חתולים וטחורים העולים לאלפים על שולחן הכינזעזים" — Ha-Maggid, April 1857

Timeline

• ~950–587 BCE: Composition of 1 Samuel; עֳפָלִים used for the Philistines' affliction
• 2nd century BCE: Septuagint renders עֳפָלִים as ἕδρα (seat/buttocks)
• 1st–5th century CE: Aramaic Targums and Syriac Peshitta render it as טְחוֹרִין
• Late 1st century CE: Josephus describes the same affliction as dysentery
• Late 4th century CE: Jerome's Vulgate renders it variously, including "anus"
• Masoretic period: טְחוֹרִים established as official qere for עֳפָלִים
• 10th century: Saadia Gaon identifies the word as the Arabic bawāsīr (hemorrhoids)
• Late 10th century: Shabbetai Donnolo uses טְחוֹרִים in medical Hebrew
• Medieval: Commentators consolidate the hemorrhoid identification
• April 1857: Ha-Maggid uses טחורים to mean "rats" (short-lived Yiddish-influenced use)
• 2007: Archaeologist Aren Maeir proposes a phallic interpretation for עֳפָלִים

Related Words

• עֳפָלִים — the original biblical word (1 Samuel 5–6; Deuteronomy 28:27); meaning unknown
• תַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת — the Talmudic term for hemorrhoids (Berachot 55a)
• קְרִי וּכְתִיב — the Masoretic system of oral substitutions for written text