In the haftara customarily read the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the prophet Isaiah expresses Hashem’s dissatisfaction with the Jews’ sinful ways and how He is no longer interested in their ritual services: “When you come to show yourself before Me, who asked for this from you, the trampling (remos) of My courtyard?” (Isaiah 1:12). In this essay, we explore the verb romes and its etymology, with an attempt at discovering if and how romes differs from its apparent synonyms, dorech and boss.
Classical lexicographers like Menachem Ibn Saruk (920-970), Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach (990-1050), Shlomo Ibn Parchon (the 12th century author of Machberet HeAruch), and Rabbi David Kimchi Radak (1160-1235) trace the word romes to the triliteral root reish-mem-samech. While cognates of this root do not show up in the Pentateuch, they do appear 19 times throughout the rest of the Bible and all in the context of “trampling” or “stomping” with one’s feet.
The term is used in later rabbinic literature as well. For example, the Talmud (Kiddushin 66a) relates that when the Hasmonean king Yannai felt slighted by a rabbi who criticized him for taking the roles of both king and Kohen Gadol, somebody else advised Yannai to “trample” (romsem) all the Torah Scholars (i.e. to kill them, according to Rashi).
Both Rabbi Yosef Kimchi (1105-1170) in Sefer HaGalui and his son Radak in Sefer HaShorashim explain that reish-mem-samech should be understood as related to the root reish-mem-sin via the interchangeability of samech and sin; but they do not explain how the connection works out thematically. For instance, words like remes, derived from that latter root, are typically used in reference to creeping, crawling creatures in the Creation and Flood narratives.
To better understand the connection between reish-mem-samech and reish-mem-sin, we turn to Nachmanides (to Genesis 1:25). He explains that creeping insects use their entire body to “tread” over the ground on which they ambulate, so their very essence relates to the idea of “treading” or “trampling.”
It appears, however, that Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Ibn Parchon do not agree with the assessment of the Kimchis, as they list the root reish-mem-sin separately from the root reish-mem-samech.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (to Genesis 1:21) also recognizes a connection between reish-mem-samech and reish-mem-sin, but he has a different way of understanding it. Because the letters samech, sin, and zayin can each sometimes be interchangeable, Rabbi Hirsch sees the roots reish-mem-samech, reish-mem-sin, reish-mem-zayin as all referring to the same basic idea of treading or trampling – just to varying degrees of intensity. Reish-mem-samech refers to stomping with the full force of one’s body in a very intense way intended to destroy or smash whatever lies underfoot. Reish-mem-sin refers to a lighter form of trampling because it denotes the way that bugs and insects – which are typically shorter and lightweight creatures – walk around but do not cause as much damage. Finally, the root reish-mem-zayin is the etymon of the word remez (“hint” or “allusion”), which Rabbi Hirsch understands to primarily refer to “eye-winking” as a means of subtly hinting at an idea. He explains that when the upper eyelid touches the bottom of the lower eyelid, this action mirrors the act of a foot “trampling” or “stomping” on the ground as one walks, but the palpebral movement of a wink is a much less intense and more subtle form of that action.
The word dorech is clearly related to the word derech (“path”), as it denotes the foot-stepping of a person who is walking on a certain trail. Indeed, all the lexicographers see these words are both derived from the triliteral root dalet-reish-chaf, whose derivatives appear over 750 times in the Bible. For example: Hashem promises that when the Jews enter the Holy Land, He will give them “wherever the palm of your foot will tread (tidroch)” (Deuteronomy 11:24, Joshua 1:3) and “will tread (tidroch) over their [enemies’] high places” (Deuteronomy 33:29). Both of these verses refer to the Jews conquering the land and subduing their enemies, figuratively stepping on them.
The word dorech is sometimes even used alongside romes. In Psalms 91, we pray for Hashem to watch us wherever we go so that nothing bad will happen – even if one might “tread over (tidroch) an old lion and a snake / trample (tirmos) a lion cub and sea-serpent” (91:13). Is there a difference between dorech and romes?
Rabbi Meir Leibush Weiser (1809-1879), better known as the Malbim, postulates that there is. He explains that romes differs from dorech in that dorech is a neutral term that simply means treading over a certain threshold, while romes implies walking in a destructive and damaging way. Based on this, he explains, when Isaiah relays Hashem’s dissatisfaction with the Jews in the context of their continued religious worship, the prophet refers to them visiting the Temple as the “trampling” of His courtyard because people would visit the Temple for a sort of superficial religious experience but were not open to learning how to properly fear Hashem. They might as well have been trampling over the Temple as though their very presence was destroying it by rendering it purposeless.
When it comes to dorech, however, this destructive connotation is not implied – the word can even refer to the constructive act of “stepping/trampling” on olives as a way of pressing them to produce olive oil (Micah 6:15) or doing the same grapes to yield grape juice (Amos 9:13, Isaiah 16:10, 63:2, Jeremiah 48:33, Nehemiah 13:15).
A third term used in the Bible for trampling, treading, or stepping on something is boss. It is used in very much the same ways that the previous two words explored here. For example, in one verse the Psalmist writes: “Through G-d, we will make valor / And He will trample [boss] our enemies” (Psalms 60:14). In explaining that verse, Rashi actually equates the term boss with the romes (see also Rashi to Psalms 44:6, Isaiah 14:25, and Proverbs 27:7). Altogether, words related to boss appear a bit more than 10 times in the Bible..
Rabbi Yisroel Zev Horowitz (1880-1918), an acclaimed scholar of the geography of the Holy Land, conjectures that the name of the Canaanite tribe that held Jerusalem before the Jews conquered it – the Jebusites (Yevusi) – may be related to this word. He suggests that because the Jebusites were known as strong conquerors who were able to successfully trample over their enemies in order to clear their path to conquest, their very name possibly reflects such deeds.
To follow the etymology of boss, the triliteralists like Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach, and Radak all trace boss to the three-letter root bet-vav-samech, while the biliteral Ibn Saruk traces it to the two-letter root bet-samech. Following the biliteralist approach, after a fashion, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740-1814) also sees the word boss as related to the two-letter root bet-samech and explains that boss differs from romes in that romes refers to “trampling” or “treading” on something that was meant to be walked upon and is usually walked on top of, but boss refers to doing so upon something which is not necessarily intended to be trampled upon. Because of this, the act of boss is a way of registering one’s feelings toward whatever he is stepping on. A similar sentiment is expressed by Rabbi Tedeschi as well, as he relates the word boss to boz/bizayon (“disparage”/”disgrace”) by invoking the interchangeability of the letters samech and zayin. The way he explains it, boss refers to the act of “stepping on” something as a way of showing one’s disgust with it.
I used to think that the Hebrew word boss was connected to the American English word boss (“employer”), who might show his dominion as he lords over his subordinates in the same way that trampling or stepping on something shows that one has conquered it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, however, the etymology of the English word boss lies in the Dutch word baas, which originally meant “uncle.” Relatedly, the Modern Hebrew slang term basa (“disappointment”) clearly derives from an Arabic cognate that means “miserable,” but it is quite possible that both might be derived from the earlier Hebrew word boss, which essentially refers to “defeat” demonstrated by trampling. I have yet to find any sources that explicitly make this connection, though. Eizeh basah.
