[Avodah] Harag, ratzach, heimis

[Micha Berger]

On Areivim, R Yitzhak Grossman <celejar at gmail.com> quoted Philologos:
: One commonly hears it said that the Hebrew verb for "kill" is harag
: and that had God wished to say "Thou shalt not kill" rather than "Thou
: shalt not murder" in the Bible, He would have said "lo taharog" and
: not "lo tirtsa." And  yet this is more a back-projection of these
: words' meaning in later Hebrew than a correct analysis of what they
: meant in biblical times.... The biblical  distinction, if there is
: any, between "harag" and "ratsach" is far from  clear-cut and is
: certainly not the same as our modern distinction between "kill" and
: "murder."

To which RnTK replied:
: The distinction between "ratsach" and "harag" may not  be clear -- as
: both may refer to murder or manslaughter -- but the real distinction
: is between those two words on the one hand, and lehamis on the other
: hand.
: IIANM the Torah always uses "lehamis" to describe a lawful killing,
: e.g., when a bais din executes someone.

This also is non-trivial.

The general notion of killing can come up in a number of cases:
1- Killing an animal
2- Unintentional killing of a person
3- Unintentional but criminally negligent killing (I'm trying to capture
   cases of ir hanidachas)
4- Intentional but legal killing -- the deceased didn't go to the ir
   hanidachas
5- Intentional mandatory killing -- misas beis din, milkhamah, haba
   lehargekha...
6- Intentional manslaughter, not preplanned
7- Preplanned murder

I'm not saying that list is canonical. In fact, it's quite possible
much of my point may be hidden behind my choice of categories.

But my intent is to clarify the question to say which of the words
"ratzach", "harag" and "hamis" apply to which of these cases.

Heimis appears to be the most general. Which makes diqduq sense, the
word is literally "to cause misah". Hashem is "meimis umechayeh", an
animal can "heimis ish" (Shemos 21:29) and in Yehoshua (10:23)
"vayimseim" refers to killing in war. Does Tanakh avoid the word when
the case is manslaughter or murder?

Harag is not found where the killer isn't a human. However, "hereg" is
not murder. Again, the term appears to include misos BD. And Lamech
refers to his harigah of Qayin in error and Tuval Qayin in the melee
(Bereishis 4:23 as explained by Chazal, see Rashi sham). In Bereishis
20:4, Avimelekh asks HQBH if "hagoi gam tzadiq taharog" -- judicial
killing, but of someone who didn't deserve it (thus his objection).

Retzichah seems to be the easiest to handle, because the Rashbam (on
"lo sirtzach") discusses it. Ratzach appears to be about murder, and
it is certainly never used WRT animals. Bamidbar 35:11 discusses my
case #3 -- retzichah includes golus-worthy accidents and v. 27
addresses  #4, the go'eil killing him. Perhaps retzichah is only where
some guilt is assignable.

HOWEVER, that's only belashon Tanakh. Belashon Chazal, we also have
Sanhedrin 35b, where the discussion of whether misas beis din is
docheh Shabbos or avodah uses the word retzichah for capital
punishment.

No answers, just thoughts along the way. Hope they help someone.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
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