A TorahTutors student working on Hebrew language learned that the word ???? (mimenu) can have different meanings. First, the prefix might mean “from” or it could be comparative, implying “more than” or “less than.” To further complicate matters, the suffix might be singular third person masculine (him/it) or it could be first person plural!
For example, in Bereishit 2:17, God tells the first human “From the tree of knowledge of good and evil, don’t eat mimenu” – there, the student deduced, mimenu means “from it.”
However, in Bereishit 26:16, Avimelech tells Yitzchak to leave “because you are much mightier mimenu” – here, context indicates that the word means “than we are.”
The plot further thickened when the student read Bamidbar 13:31 and the spies’ insistence that the Promised Land would be impenetrable “because the nation [currently in the land] is stronger mimenu.” Though most readers would assume the first person plural here too – i.e., “they are stronger than we are” – Rashi offers a midrashic reading that takes mimenu in this verse as a reference to God Himself.
What ideas or textual clues might have motivated this midrashic reading?
Which other instances of mimenu – or other ambiguous words – might be understandable according to multiple meanings?
What different ideas might we uncover by adjusting our reading of just one little word, and seeing it in a slightly different way?
We’d love to delve into all these different “ways” with you! Check us out and start learning today.
A Tuesday TorahTutors tidbit: real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions.
