מוֹקֵד (moked) — focal point; focus

Etymology

In the Bible, מוֹקֵד means the place where fire burns — a hearth or furnace. The word derives from the root יק״ד (to burn). In Leviticus 6:2: "This is the law of the burnt offering: the burnt offering shall remain on the hearth (moked) upon the altar all night until the morning." After the biblical period, the word's meaning expanded to cover all fire-related phenomena: flame, bonfire, conflagration. By the 19th century, during the Haskalah period, the word was mainly used in literary contexts for the stakes on which people were burned, typically in the phrase "went up in flames" (alah al moked). This would have remained the word's primary association had it not been for Arieh Feigenbaum.

Feigenbaum was an ophthalmologist born in Lviv (then Austro-Hungary, now Ukraine) who settled in Jerusalem in 1913. In 1927, in his book Ha-Ayin: Halioteiha, Shmirat Bri'utah ve-ha-Tipul Bah ("The Eye: Its Ailments, Care, and Treatment"), he chose מוֹקֵד as the Hebrew equivalent of the Latin focus. The reasoning is transparent: the original Latin meaning of focus was identical to that of biblical מוֹקֵד — both meant "hearth." It was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler who first gave focus its mathematical meaning: in his 1604 Astronomiae Pars Optica, he used the term for the point at which rays from a curve converge, apparently because he envisioned this convergence point as a furnace radiating light.

After Feigenbaum's book, מוֹקֵד was gradually adopted in Hebrew for "focus," but it had many competitors. The linguist Yitzhak Avinery listed them in Davar in December 1930: "What is called focus in other languages is called moked, mokeda, khiron, nekudat ha-habber, nekudat ha-srefah." In the 1930s, מוֹקֵד prevailed — perhaps because it received the backing of the Va'ad ha-Lashon (Hebrew Language Committee) in 1930.

The adoption of מוֹקֵד as the established term for "focus" had a remarkable byproduct. Because the word's structure is that of a verb-form noun derived from root יק״ד, the Hebrew language generated a new, back-derived root: מק״ד. This "denominal" root spawned new verbs: מִקֵּד ("to focus") first appears in a 1957 film review in Ha-Aretz describing director Jean Negulesco "focusing his camera on Sophia Loren's bare legs." The reflexive הִתְמַקֵּד ("to focus oneself") appears in a 1959 short story. The verbal noun מִקּוּד ("focusing") first appears in 1958 newspaper reports on physicist Nicholas Christofilos's method of "strong focusing" for particle accelerators.

This same word, מִקּוּד, was chosen in 1971 by Israel Post for the country's new postal code system. When the code system launched on June 1, 1971, a 20-year-old reader named Absalom Kur wrote to Ma'ariv protesting that the name was grammatically improper (a pi'el verbal noun can't come from the root מק״ד). The lexicographer Abraham Even-Shoshan later suggested the word was an acronym of mispar kod (code number). In fact it was neither an error nor an acronym — it was a well-formed denominal derivation from מוֹקֵד, meaning "the act of directing toward a focus," which aptly describes a postal code's function of routing mail step by step to its destination.

Key Quotes

"הִוא הָעֹלָה עַל מוֹקְדָה עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ כָּל הַלַּיְלָה עַד הַבֹּקֶר" — Leviticus 6:2 (biblical occurrence of מוֹקֵד)

"מה שנקרא בלע״ז פוקוס... נקרא מוקד, מוקדה, כירון, נקודת-ההבער, נקודת השרפה" — Yitzhak Avinery, Davar, December 1930 (listing competing Hebrew terms for "focus")

Timeline

• Biblical period: מוֹקֵד means "hearth, place of burning" (Leviticus 6:2 etc.)
• Post-biblical: Meaning extended to flame, bonfire, conflagration
• 19th century (Haskalah): מוֹקֵד used mainly for burning-at-the-stake; phrase alah al moked becomes dominant
• 1604: Johannes Kepler gives Latin focus its optical/mathematical meaning
• 1913: Arieh Feigenbaum immigrates to Jerusalem
• 1927: Feigenbaum uses מוֹקֵד as Hebrew equivalent of focus in his ophthalmology book
• 1930: Va'ad ha-Lashon (Hebrew Language Committee) backs מוֹקֵד as the standard term
• 1930: Yitzhak Avinery lists competing terms; מוֹקֵד eventually wins
• 1957: מִקֵּד (verb: "to focus") first attested in Ha-Aretz
• 1958: מִקּוּד first attested (Christofilos "strong focusing" particle accelerator)
• 1959: הִתְמַקֵּד first attested in a short story
• June 1, 1971: Israel Post adopts מִקּוּד as the Hebrew term for postal code

Related Words

• יק״ד — root: "to burn"
• מִקֵּד — "to focus" (verb); denominal from מוֹקֵד
• הִתְמַקֵּד — "to focus oneself, concentrate on"
• מִקּוּד — "focusing"; also Israeli postal code
• פּוֹקוּס — Latin/English focus; original meaning also "hearth"
• כּוֹכָב — star; cf. Johannes Kepler who coined the focus meaning