Vayigash: Cutting Tools
Axes, adzes, picks, and other cutting tools are indispensable in the realm of human craftsmanship, agriculture, and construction, and their linguistic counterparts in Hebrew reveal a fascinating web of meanings. This essay delves into the Hebrew synonyms for such tools—garzen, kardum, ma’atzad, kashil, and keilapot—unpacking their etymologies and exploring the nuanced distinctions between them. By examining the origins and uses of these terms in Biblical and Rabbinic literature, we gain insight into how the Hebrew language captures the multifaceted nature of these implements, reflecting both their practical functions and legal significance.
The word garzen ("axe/pick") appears four times in the Bible, both in the context of woodworking and stonecutting. The first time this word appears in the Bible is in Deuteronomy, which refers to the case of a woodsman who was chopping wood in the forest, when the head of his garzen slips off the handle and kills somebody. In that case, the Torah stipulates that the inadvertent killer is liable for exile and must flee to a City of Refuge (Deut. 19:5). The garzen also makes its appearance when presenting the prohibition of cutting down fruit trees (Deut. 20:19). Half the time, the word garzen in the Bible refers to a tool used for cutting wood (Deut. 19:5, 20:19), but in two more instances, garzen refers to a tool use for cutting stone (see Isa. 10:5 and I Kgs. 6:7). As an aside, the word garzen never occurs in Rabbinic Hebrew — except for when quoting Biblical verses.
The etymology of the Biblical Hebrew word garzen is subject to dispute amongst the classical lexicographers: Menachem Ibn Saruk in Machberet Menachem traces garzen to the quadriliteral root GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN-NUN, seeing each consonant in garzen as part of the word's core root. This is significant because four-letter roots are generally considered rare in Hebrew and are often explained by the commentators as reflecting loanwords from foreign languages. On the other hand, Rabbi David Kimchi in his Sefer HaShorashim writes that garzen derives from the triliteral root GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN, which refers to the act of “cutting/carving.” He sees the final NUN of garzen as extraneous to the word’s core root.
Interestingly, Ibn Janach (in his Sefer HaShorahsim) and Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (in his Machberet He’Aruch) list the word garzen both under the triliteral root GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN and the quadriliteral GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN-NUN. They seem ambivalent about which of the two aforementioned approaches is better. Ibn Janach also explicitly connects GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN with its metathesized counterpart GIMMEL-ZAYIN-REISH (“cutting”). Rashi (to Ps. 31:23) and his grandson Rabbeinu Tam likewise follow Donash Ibn Labrat in explaining garzen as related to that root as well.
Additionally, Ibn Janach sees this Hebrew word as the etymon of the now-obsolete Arabic word karzam (based on the interchangeability of the letters GIMMEL and KAF), which also means “ax.” Apparently, forms of the wanderwort garzen in other foreign languages include the Akkadian hassinnu and the Aramaic chatzina (e.g., see Targum Jonathan to Isa. 44:12 and Yoma 37b).
Rabbi Shamshon Raphael Hirsch (to Ex. 26:6) sees the Hebrew root GIMMEL-REISH-ZAYIN as related to the phonetically-similar roots KUF-REISH-SAMECH ("crashing/tearing"), GIMMEL-REISH-SAMECH (“grinding/crushing”), and KUF-REISH-TZADI (“cutting/severing”). These phonetic affinities are based on the interchangeability of the letters GIMEML and KUF and of the letters ZAYIN, SAMECH, and TZADI. In comparing these four different roots, Rabbi Hirsch identifies a shared fundamental meaning among these roots: acts of cutting, breaking, or separating with force.
As mentioned above, the word garzen is sometimes used in the context of woodworking, but also refers specifically to stonecutting. This later usage of the term also appears in the archeological record: The Siloam Inscription — written in Biblical Hebrew and dated to Biblical times — was discovered in the late 19th century within Hezekiah’s Tunnel in Jerusalem. This tunnel, an engineering marvel from Biblical times, was constructed to secure water from the Shiloah for the city during the reign of King Hezekiah, as mentioned in the Bible (e.g., II Kgs. 20:20; II Chron. 32:30). The inscription commemorates the completion of the tunnel and vividly describes the moment when the two teams of workers, who began digging from opposite ends, met in the middle. The word garzen appears in this inscription in reference to the tools used by said workers to carve through the rock in constructing this tunnel. [For more about this episode, see “The Shiloach Waters” (July 2023).
Essentially, garzen denotes both the "adze" in woodworking and the "pick" in stoneworking, with both meanings of garzen amply attested to. Yet, it is somewhat unusual for a single term to refer to two distinct tools of craftsmanship. Dr. Aaron J. Koller (from Yeshiva University) addresses the problematic polysemy of the Biblical Hebrew term garzen by suggesting two potential explanations: First, he proposes the possibility of a semantic shift in the term's meaning over time, allowing it to encompass both contexts. Alternatively, he posits that garzen may serve as a descriptive term for a specific tool shape that fits both uses of the word. In light of the above etymology that connects garzen with generic verbs for “cutting,” the problem of garzen’spolysemous nature is less acute.
Another word for a cutting tool in Biblical Hebrew is kardum, often translated as an “adze-axe” or “mattock.” This word appears five times in the Bible, once in third-person possessive singular form (kardumo in I Sam. 13:20), once in a masculine plural form (kardumim in I Sam. 13:21), and thrice in the feminine plural form (kardumot in Ps. 74:5, Jud. 9:48, Jer. 46:22). Based on the fact that kardum first appears in the Book of Samuel and not beforehand, Dr. Koller suggests that the kardum was introduced to the Levant by the Philistines, who held a monopoly on certain types of metallurgy in the period of the Judges.
In the Mishnah, the word is vocalized as kordom/kardom in the many places that it appears (Peah 4:4, Sheviit 4:6, 5:4, Shabbat 17:2, Beitzah 4:3, Avot 4:5, Meilah 5:1, Keilim 13:3, 20:3, 29:4-7, Tahorot 9:7, Parah 12:5). The description of the kardum found in the Mishnah (Keilim 13:3) suggests that it was a double-sided tool with an adze blade on one side of its head and an ax blade on the other side. Radak (to I Sam. 13:20) says that the same applies to the Biblical kardum. Taking all the examples of kardum in the Bible into consideration, it emerges that this tool was used by soldiers as well as by farmers. In rabbinic parlance, kardum also refers to a tool used for digging (like when Avot 4:5 warns those studying Torah not to make their lofty pursuit into a “kardum to dig with it”), although this usage of the word or the tool is not attested to in the Bible. This later usage is likely what led Ibn Janach to define the Biblical kardum as a “spade,” even though Radak rejected that view (per the above).
We’ve used some fancy English words here like adze, ax, and adze-axe/mattock. All of these are cutting tools, but what exactly do they mean? The difference between an ax and adze is that the ax’s blade lies parallel to its handle, while an adze’s cutting edge is perpendicular to its handle. They also differ in how they work, as the ax is struck perpendicular to the surface upon which it used, while the adze is used at an oblique angle to that surface. A tool that serves as both an adze and ax is known as a mattock in English. An ax was used in the ancient lumber industry to chop down a tree and cut off protruding branches in order to produce wood logs. These logs were then cut into workable planks, on which an adze would be used to shape the wood into whatever it was needed for. Based on the notion that languages tend to avoid absolute synonyms, Dr. Koller argues that garzen refers to a “large ax” used to initially fell a tree, while kardum refers to a “smaller ax” used to cut the fallen log into smaller pieces and to chop off protruding branches.
Another word for cutting tool in Biblical Hebrew is ma’atzad (“adze”). Both appearances of this word in the Bible are in passages wherein the prophets mock idols for being the handiwork of man, and in both places the word ma’atzad refers to a tool that the carpenter uses for carving wood (Isa. 44:12, Jer. 10:3). Rashi (to Isa. 44:12) writes that a ma’atzad is one of the tools used by the blacksmith, and elsewhere Rashi (to Shabbat 102b) writes that it is a type of large kornas. However, Dr. Koller notes that even though ma’atzad in Isaiah appears in the context of the handiwork of a blacksmith, this is because the tool itself is made by a blacksmith, even though it is used by the woodworker. Indeed, Dr. Koller notes that in the Mishnah (Shabbat 12:1, Bava Kamma 10:10, Erachin 6:3, Keilim 13:4, 29:6), the word ma’atzad always refers to a tool used for woodwork.
This leads us to an interesting question: The Gezer Calendar is an ancient Canaanite inscription found in Gezer (in central Israel). The calendar provides a list of agricultural activities associated with bi-monthly periods, giving us a glimpse into the agrarian cycle of the Canaanites. One of the entries on the list refers to an agricultural task represented by a declension of the triliteral Canaanite root AYIN-TZADI-DALET in reference to some action done to flax. The precise meaning of the verb in reference here is not readily apparent, but the consensus of scholars sees it as a reference to the “harvesting” of flax. It has long been established that Ancient Canaanite was quite similar to Biblical Hebrew, which should suggest that the Biblical ma’atzad which is likewise derived from that same triliteral root should also refer to some sort of “scythe” or “sickle” used for “harvesting,” rather than to an “adze” as most commentators understand it.
Dr. Koller resolves this question by answering that while ma’atzad in Biblical Hebrew is a type of “adze” (and derives from the Biblical Hebrew root AYIN-TZADI-DALET), it is unrelated to the Canaanite AYIN-TZADI-DALET found in the Gezer Calendar because the latter is actually a cognate of the Aramaic root CHET-TZADI-DALET (the standard Targumic term for rendering inflections of the Hebrew ketzirah) by way of the interchangeability of AYIN and CHET.
[I was wondering if the English word adze ultimately derives from the Semitic root AYIN-TZADI-DALET, with metathesis used to explain the transposition of the final two consonants. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary lists the etymology of adze as unknown. I emailed Dr. Theo Vennemann who has written about supposed Semitic influence on Germanic languages, but as of press time, he has not yet written back. In private correspondence, Dr. Koller also admitted to having wondered about such an etymological connection between the English word and the Biblical Hebrew term.]
Another two words for cutting tools in Biblical Hebrew are kashil and keilapot, which are hapax legomena because they only appear once in the Biblical corpus (Ps. 74:6). Although Menachem Ibn Saruk understands those two words as names of weapons, Donash disagrees and correctly identifies them as tools used by woodcutters. The Mishnah (Bava Kamma 10:10) discusses the law of a craftsman involved in woodwork and whether or not he is entitled to keep the scraps of the project contracted to him, or those scraps must be returned to whoever contracted him. The Mishnah rules that when the craftsman uses a ma’atzad, then the scarps belong to the woodworker, but when he uses a kashil, then the scraps belong to the one who contracted him. This is because a kashil is a bigger tool and thus produces larger scarps, so the one who contracted the craftsman is assumed to want to use those scarps for his own uses. On the other hand, the ma’atzad is a smaller tool and yields only finer scraps, such that the one contracting the craftsman has no use for them and allows the contracted worker to keep them.
The word keilapot seems to be a foreign synonym for kardum. Dr. Koller sees this term as a foreign loanword that is not native to Hebrew, connecting it with the Akkadian kalappu and other Hittite cognates. In fact, Dr. Koller points out that Targum (to I Sam. 13:20) and the Peshitta (to I Sam. 13:20–21) use a variant of keilapot when rendering the Hebrew kardum (but in that form of the word, the PEH is interchanged with a BET).
Much of the information for this article comes from Dr. Aaron J. Koller's The Semantic Field of Cutting Tools in Biblical Hebrew: The Interface of Philological, Semantic, and Archeological Evidence (2012), and from his 2013 article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies about the word ma’atzad. For more about magal and chermesh as tools used for harvesting, see “The Sickle and the Exile” (March 2021). For words that denote the act of “cutting,” see “Cut it Out” (Part 1, Part 2) from Jan. 2019.
