A word may develop two opposite, or quite different, meanings, as the English word “nice,” which once meant “stupid, ignorant,” but which currently means “pleasant, agreeable, polite.” Similarly, in Hebrew, shafel has developed a variety of meanings, from a physical “low” to the abstract “base, mean, despicable.”
Some biblical nuances: nivzim ushfalim “nasty and despicable” (Malachi 2:9); shafal “low standing; person of little value” (Psalms 138:6); shfal-ruaH “humble” (Proverbs 29:23); shfal anashim “(God may set as a ruler) the humblest (perhaps sometimes the most despicable?) of men” (Daniel 4:14).
Modern uses: shiflut “meanness”; shefel kalkali “economic depression”; shefel ba-‘asaqim “business downturn”; shefel ha-madregah “the lowest rung, the worst situation”; hishpil “to humiliate; insult, put to shame”; hashpalah “putting to shame, humbling”*; mashpil “humiliating, insulting.”
Arabic cognates are safil, sufli “hooligan, hoodlum”; in Yiddish, shofel “worth little, common.”
*As (God) is able to humble (hashpalah) those who behave arrogantly” (Daniel 4:34).
Yona Sabar is a professor of Hebrew and Aramaic in the department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at UCLA.
