Dave. No, it can not be. The root חמץ can not mean "to be sour, to ferment, to be leavened." Possibly 'leavened' (elevated) but absolutely not 'be sour.' A ROOT is not a VERB. This is a basic fact of Hebrew and he who does get it does not understand what it is all about. By this backward logic אדוֹם 'red' is from the root אדם leading us to think that אדם וחוה were a couple of redskins, or as some say black (how black=red I do not know) like אדמה 'soil' as a hint that mankind was created in Africa. To account for the perplexing fact that the same root gives rise to seemingly unrelated words (say צלחת and הצלחה) the higher authorities (HA) have resort to the subterfuge of the same-different root theory, namely, that there are 'different' say, צ letters, not different in writing, since there has never been such a thing, but different in pronunciation. How do they know how words were pronounced 3000 years ago? It is a muddled story and not for now. I say, TO THE CONTRARY, the root is unchanged by a substitute of varying pronunciation as in נצר-נטר (it is not clear to me why נטר which is in the Torah is "Aramaic"} and a host of other examples: חצב=חטב, נצל=נטל, פצח-פתח, דירה=טירה and so on. From חמץ we have חָמֵץ 'evil, oppression', (Ps 77,4), חָמֵץ leavened dough, חֹמֶץ 'vinegar,' and חֲמוּץ 'crimson?' (Jes 63,1). To account for al this the HA made up this fantastic theory: First we notice that חמץ=חם-אץ, 'very hot.' Now, if iron is heated up to an elevated temperature it becomes glowing red, and if we (imbeciles that we are?) put our tongue to it we will get a painful sensation as if we stuck it in vinegar. Hence, obviously חמוּץ (sour)=חמוּץ (reddened)=חמוּץ (hot as is Chinese food) and the enigma is resolved. To be continued.
פריד יצחק
I continue.
Some level headed, clear minded, people question the validity of this theory but the HA are strong minded (or dead) and they stick to their guns, so to speak. What do I (הצעיר באלפי יהוּדה) think? I think so: חמוּץ 'sour' must have come (like מלוּח 'salty') from the taste of some substance that has this flavor and at the same time has the obvious physical property expressed by the root חמץ, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 'SOUR'. Knowing the lifestyle of our forefathers I say it is CURD, congealed or coagulated milk. Hence חמץ like קמץ is 'clot', clump, lump.'
פריד יצחק
any links with "leha'hmits"? (to miss, e.g. to miss an opportunity or a train)
חיפה דוד. Since we mentioned מר 'bitter' (which I think is 'sap' of some sort: מריר=מה-ריר), and מלוּח 'salty,' we should mention also מתוֹק 'sweet.' from the root מתק=מצק 'to be solid, to be lumpy.' What was then sweet and solid? Either crystallized bee honey or date tzimes, דבש תמרים (notice the chain דבש-יבש-גבש-כבש and pay attention to the fact that דְבַש 'honey' and דבשת 'camel hump' come both from the same דבש root.) Now back to חמץ=חמס=קמץ=קבץ=כווץ ' lump, compress, draw together, constrict, contract, shrink, compact, squeeze, cramp.' Ps. 73,21 "יתחמץ לבבי וכליותי אשתונן" is "my heart is spasmodically squeezed (יתקמץ, יתכווץ) within my body," The modern Hebrew החמיץ את ההזדמנוּת 'missed the opportunity' is הקמיץ את ההזדמנוּת 'constricted, diminished, the opportunity,' or הקמיט את ההזדמנוּת 'crushed, collapsed, wrinkled, crumpled, rumpled, the opportunity.' (Look up the tortuous etymology of the English 'miss' as in 'mistake') The modern Hebrew קמצוּץ is 'a pinch, a small lump' and hence חוּמוּס 'humus' is כוּמוּס-כוּמוּז=קוּמוּץ 'small lumps' or 'small peas.' The גוּמץ 'pit, hollow' of Eccl. 10,8 is also a קוּמץ but in the negative sense of a קמצוּץ of emptiness. The חמוֹץ of Jes. 1,17: "דרשוּ משפט אשרוּ חמוֹץ" is obviously חמוֹס 'oppression.' OK I will truncate it.
Another relative of חמץ is חמק from which we have התחמק 'dodged, evaded, extricated, disengaged' and also the seemingly unrelated חמוּק 'a full, a leavened, a curved, קמוּץ, thigh' as in Cant. 7,2 ".חמוּקי ירכיך כמוֹ חלאים" Still another relative is שמץ from which we have שֶמֶץ as in Job. 26, 14 "ומה שמץ דבר נשמע בו" where שֶמֶץ is translated (the Authorized Version) as 'portion,' namely, קֶמֶץ, 'a pinch.'
פריד יצחק
What's puzzling me is the use of s'or for leaven. As far as I can tell, s'or is an Indo-European word "cwr" (same as in English/German/Old Slavic "sour/sauer/sur"), which would fit with our "sourdough". The closest Semitic root is HMS, hence chometz, chameitz, (vinegar, leavened-food), etc.
So why is an Indo-European word in the Chumash?
Klein says "s'or" is of uncertain etymology. Perhaps it's related, perhaps not. If so, there are two possibilities - either there was some borrowing going on in one direction or another, or perhaps they both came from a common earlier source.
A similar case would be yayin and wine.
Hametz is leavened bread (hence UNleavend bread is hametz's opposite) and not leavened dough as Fried mistakenly asserts; Mahmetzet (מחמצת) means "that which is leavened"; S'or means sourdough or souring agent (for bread's dough). I've heard this on one of Nehemia Gordon's mp3 audios on the Karaite Korner website.
As for Fried's comments, I think he failed to take into account that ח represented during the Biblical era two different letters in effect. Arabic writes the two differently while Hebrew never did. Couldn't it be that חמוץ ("sour") and חומץ (vinegar) were pronounced with a "kh" (as in "Bach")whereas "hometz" was pronounced with a "h" (as in the Arabic "wahad")? I'll have to look this up for an authoritative answer. Meanwhile I see no reason to reject Dave's conclusion that identifies this particular biblical occurence of hometz, which was most likely pronounced in BC times "homes", as humous. I also think it'd be ridiculous to posit the words eretz and aretz (ארץ) were pronounced ere` and are` respectively as if they ended with an Ayin. These two words were probably pronounced with a hard deep 'd' sound representing the ץ -- "ered" and "ared". And a name like Tyre was written of course צור but pronouncd "Tor". So in most respects Hebrew is closer to Aramaic than Arabic, but not all.
You point out that the Aramaic word for chametz is חמיעא. Normally when a word has צ in Hebrew but ע in Aramaic, the Arabic equivalent has ض (usually transcribed with a dotted d: ḍ. This is the sound of the "d" in Ramaḍān.
Sure enough, the Arabic root حمض (ḥ-m-ḍ) means "to be sour." So that would point to "chametz" and "vinegar" coming from the same origin afterall. This may seem counterintuitive to us, but you consider the prevalence of sourdough in the ancient world. Isolated ready-to-use yeast would have been hard to come by (Maybe the Ancient Hebrews knew how to get it--the Romans did--but its not like they could just go down to the supermarket and pick up a package of it). The vast majority of leavened bread would have tasted sour.
Oh ,and btw, I like your interpretation of Ruth 2:14.
Justin -
Interesting point. I think it complements some of the issues I brought up in this post as well:
http://www.balashon.com/2007/04/...l-
shimurim.html
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