Two places in the Bible describe God striking people with hemorrhoids (ophalim):
- hill, mound, fort, stronghold, Ophel
- tumour, hemorrhoid
Creator: יוצר: Based on the work of Larry Pierce at the Online Bible
Traditional readings replace these crass references with the less offensive term techorim (abscesses).
And they were afflicted internally.וַיִשָֹּתְרוּ is identical with וַיִסָּתְרוּ for it is listed in the Masora among those words written with a 'שֹ' and explained as though it were written with a 'ס' meaning "there was a plague in the 'hidden parts of the body.'" (italics mine)
As part of the curses in Parashat Ki Tavo, YHWH—a name that comes with the invariable qeri of Adonai[2]—threatens Israel with a number of bodily afflictions if they do not abide by the covenant. One of these threats contains a Ketiv-Qeri:
|
What the Text Actually Says (Ketiv) |
What the Listener Will Hear (Qeri) |
|
יַכְּכָה יְ-הֹוָה בִּשְׁחִין מִצְרַיִם ובעפלים וּבַגָּרָב וּבֶחָרֶס אֲשֶׁר לֹא תוּכַל לְהֵרָפֵא: |
יַכְּכָה יְ-הֹוָה בִּשְׁחִין מִצְרַיִם וּבַטְּחֹרִים וּבַגָּרָב וּבֶחָרֶס אֲשֶׁר לֹא תוּכַל לְהֵרָפֵא: |
| Yhwh will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover. | Yhwh will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with abscesses, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover. |
This type of scribal adjustment appears in a few places in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in connection with scatological (i.e., bathroom) terminology,[5] but only once more in the Torah, also in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deut 28:30), in which a crasser term for sex (ש-ג-ל) is replaced with the more polite “lie with” (ש-כ-ב).
- Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber, https://www.thetorah.com/article/unspoken-hemorrhoids-making-the-torah-reading-polite 2016
It is unclear what it might mean to make a golden statue of hemorrhoids or abscesses. The LXX’s translation, however, avoids this problem. As we saw above, the LXX renders the verse in Ki Tavo as “an affliction of the behind.” Similarly, in 1 Samuel 6:17, the LXX describes the offering as “five golden behinds (αἱ ἕδραι αἱ χρυσαῖ).”[9] Radak (R. David Kimchi, 1160-1235), in his gloss on 1Sam 5:6, also understands the word ophalim as buttocks as opposed to hemorrhoids.[10]
Even if we do not accept the LXX and Radak’s translation of ophalim as “buttocks,” and assume that it does mean “hemorrhoids,” the LXX’s suggestion of golden buttocks may be correct. It seems much more likely that the author of Samuel is using the term “golden hemorrhoids” as a synecdoche, and imagining statues of the men’s afflicted bottoms as opposed to statues of the affliction itself, since how does one make a statue of hemorrhoids?[11]
- Farber
Don’t harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts. As you know, when He made a mockery of them, they had to let Israel go, and they departed.
The image of the powerful rulers of the Philistines, who routed Israel in a humiliating defeat, making golden images of their afflicted bottoms to offer to the Israelite God is certainly meant to be comical. (The surprising addition of golden mice will have to wait for a different piece.)
The text lampoons Israel’s powerful enemies in an ancient example of toilet humor. Nevertheless, as we saw in Deuteronomy, the later scribes were uncomfortable with this mode of expression in the holy texts and compromised by creating the tradition of not reading the word ophalim in public.
- Farber
The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 25b) quotes a baraita (an early rabbinic source) listing all the times we avoid crass language in public readings and substitute the terms with euphemisms.
כל המקראות הכתובין בתורה לגנאי קורין אותן לשבח…
All the verses that include rude words are read with euphemisms…
Unsurprisingly, both Deut 28:27 and 1Sam 5-6 are mentioned. To the ancient scribes as well as the rabbis, it is one thing to have these words appear in the biblical text, perhaps for shock value, or, in the case of Samuel, comic effect, but quite another to have them read aloud in polite company, whether in synagogues or other Torah-reading venues.
Samaritan and LXX
Other traditions appear to have been less squeamish, although confusion about the exact meaning of the curse remains. The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), for instance, reads ophalim, with no adjustments.[6] The Septuagint (LXX) combines the first two curses to threaten that God will strike the Israelites, “with Egyptian inflammation in the buttocks.”[7] It sounds as if the scribe thought of hemorrhoids as an Egyptian affliction. Whatever the explanation, the translator is not bothered by making reference to this private area in his popular translation.
- Farber
"לטיפול השחין המצרי!"
"Treats the Egyptian Inflammation!"
(1) The Destruction That Came Upon The Philistines, And Upon Their Land, By The Wrath Of God On Account Of Their Having Carried The Ark Away Captive; And After What Manner They Sent It Back To The Hebrews.
1. When the Philistines had taken the ark of the Hebrews captive, as I said a little before, they carried it to the city of Ashdod, and put it by their own god, who was called Dagon, (1) as one of their spoils; but when they went into his temple the next morning to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to the ark, for he lay along, as having fallen down from the basis whereon he had stood: so they took him up, and set him on his basis again, and were much troubled at what had happened; and as they frequently came to Dagon and found him still lying along, in a posture of adoration to the ark, they were in very great distress and confusion. At length God sent a very destructive disease upon the city and country of Ashdod, for they died of the dysentery or flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them very suddenly; for before the soul could, as usual in easy deaths, be well loosed from the body, they brought up their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten, and what was entirely corrupted by the disease. And as to the fruits of their country, a great multitude of mice arose out of the earth and hurt them, and spared neither the plants nor the fruits.
(2) 2. These men said it was not right either to send the ark away, or to retain it, but to dedicate five golden images, one for every city, as a thank-offering to God, on account of his having taken care of their preservation, and having kept them alive when their lives were likely to be taken away by such distempers as they were not able to bear up against. They also would have them make five golden mice like to those that devoured and destroyed their country