chayil and chayal

Devarim 8:17-18 includes a well-known passage where the people are warned against attributing their successes to their own talents, instead of attributing them to God:

וְאָמַרְתָּ בִּלְבָבֶךָ כֹּחִי וְעֹצֶם יָדִי עָשָׂה לִי אֶת־הַחַיִל הַזֶּה. וְזָכַרְתָּ אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי הוּא הַנֹּתֵן לְךָ כֹּחַ לַעֲשׂוֹת חָיִל...

A repeated word in these verses is chayil חָיִל. Since the word for "soldier" in Hebrew is the similar chayal חַיָּל, I assumed that the Torah here was talking about military success. And yet, the translations consistently offer a very different meaning. Here is a typical translation:

And should you say to yourselves, “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” Remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to get wealth...

Chayil here is translated as "wealth." What is the connection between "wealth" and "soldier"?

To answer this, let's look at the various meanings of chayil in Biblical Hebrew. It appears frequently, with over 200 occurrences in the Tanakh. Kaddari breaks down the various appearances into these meanings:

1. Physical strength (e.g., Tehilim 76:6)
2. Spiritual strengths, such as bravery, virtue, quickness, aptitude (e.g., Mishlei 31:10, the famous Eshet Chayil, "woman of valor")
3. Military power, army (e.g., Shemot 14:28)
4. Wealth (e.g., Tehilim 49:7)

Even-Shoshan, in his Concordance, has a somewhat different division: 

1. Strength, bravery (either physical or spiritual)
2. Military
3. Success, wealth

(For an interesting comparison of those usages, see the various medieval commentaries on Shemot 18:21, who give different interpretations to the use of chayil in that verse.)

When we have such a variety of meanings, it's natural to try to find a common thread between them, and if possible, a shared origin. And linguistic sources do make those efforts. However, what I've found so far, I haven't found very convincing.

For example, here's Klein's entry:

חַֽיִל m.n. 1 strength, power. 2 wealth. 3 army, host, force. [Related to BAram. חַיִל, Aram. חֵילָא, Syr. חַיְלָא (= strength, army), Arab. ḥaul, ḥayl (= strength, force), Akka. ellatu (= army), Ethiop. ḫayl (= strength, army).]

I don't see an obvious connection between strength/power and wealth, other than a general sense of power including control over resources like wealth. BDB has a similarly vague entry, defining chayil as "strength, efficiency, wealth, army", and deriving from the roots חיל/חול meaning "be firm, strong." While it is possible that there's a general association between strength and wealth (as well as military might), from my experience, words like this typically move from a more specific meaning to the more abstract ones, and so this doesn't quite sit right with me. Ben Yehuda, at least, admits that the origin of the root is unclear.

I, however, propose (cautiously) another theory. To get there, we need to return to Ben-Yehuda.

I mentioned earlier that the word chayal means "soldier." Unlike chayil, this is not an ancient word, but rather was devised by Ben-Yehuda. As Klein notes: 

coined by Eliezer ben Yehudah (1858–1922), from חַיִּל (= strength, army), on the analogy of Arab. ḫayyāl (= horseman, rider) from ḫayl (= horses).

The linguist Reuven Sivan (pp. 194-195 here) includes this coinage as part of Ben Yehuda's move from clumsier multiple-word phrases (common in Hebrew from the period of the Haskalah) for a term to single words. Prior to Ben Yehuda, a soldier may have been  referred to as an איש צבא, איש חיל, איש מלחמה, etc. Ben Yehuda took an Arabic word (ḫayyāl), related to a Hebrew word which sometimes has military associations (hayil) and created the catchy chayal, which was quickly adopted.

But notice that Arabic word, ḫayl (or chail), meaning horses. There are cases in Biblical Hebrew where chayil is associated with horses as well, such as Tehillim 33:17, where horses are presented in parallel to chayil:

שֶׁקֶר הַסּוּס לִתְשׁוּעָה וּבְרֹב חֵילוֹ לֹא יְמַלֵּט׃

"The horse is a false [hope] for deliverance, neither does its great strength provide escape."

I would like to suggest that perhaps the earliest meaning of the root חיל is "horse." Later, it developed into the more abstract senses we've seen before.

Chayil meaning strength could certainly have come from horses. In English, we have the term "horsepower," which came about much later, but the association between horse and power is a very old one.

The military association is also not surprising, as the most powerful militaries of the ancient world were supported by cavalry on horseback.

But what about wealth (the original cause of my investigation)? Well, we've seen in the past here several words that associate horses (or cattle) with property:

• rekhesh  רֶֽכֶשׁ meaning "team of horses" (Esther 8:10) and רְכוּשׁ meaning "property"
• mikneh  מִקְנֶה - "cattle" and the verb קנה - "to purchase"
• nekhes  נֶכֶס - "wealth, assets" related to the Aramaic root נכס meaning "to slaughter" and so nekhes was originally "cattle (to be killed)
• segula  סְגֻלָּה meant both "herd of cattle" and "property, treasure"

So perhaps chayil can be added to this list as well, as another word where horses (and cattle) became associated with the more abstract concepts of property and wealth. There is even support from the very passage I quoted in the beginning. A few verses before the warning of claiming credit for the acquired wealth, the Torah describes the source of that wealth:

וּבְקָרְךָ וְצֹאנְךָ יִרְבְּיֻן וְכֶסֶף וְזָהָב יִרְבֶּה־לָּךְ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר־לְךָ יִרְבֶּה׃

"And your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered" (Devarim 8:13)

While gold and silver certainly contribute to wealth, by placing the herds of cattle at the very top of the list, we can see the ancient association between the two concepts.

 

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