What do _you_ think זֹנִים means?

[lethargic_man]

Following on from my previous post, consider the passage in the final paragraph of the Shema:

You shall look on [the fringe on your garment] and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them, and not follow after the desires of your heart and eyes, which you [something] after.

וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת כָּל מִצוֹת יהוה וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְלֹא תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם זֹנִים אַחֲרֵיהֶם:

The "something" is זֹנִים, which is clearly derived from זוֹנָה, "prostitute";^* hence the translation of the KJV "that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring." It always amused me that the Singer's Prayerbook bowdlerised this to "which you are inclined to go after."

* Which root also gives us, just to throw a linguistic spanner in the works, מָזוֹן, "nourishment". Which tells us something interesting about the ancient Semites' (almost certainly further back than the ancient Israelites) attitude towards either food or prostitution. ;^)

My initial inclination was to translate this "which you lust after." But then it occurred to me possibly I've been misled by the language of the traditional translations. "Go whoring after" implies following one's lusts. However, most prostitutes aren't in the business because they are following their lust. And, indeed, in English "to prostitute oneself" implies a sense of self-betrayal: giving up something one should hold as sacred in pursuit of another cause. And possibly this is what is meant here.

Possibly. I should go home and look this up in my dictionaries.

Comments

[liv]

This is a really lovely reading, but there's a major point you've missed: almost all of Torah is implicitly addressed to men. Here זֹנִים is much more likely to mean using prostitutes, so "go whoring after", than becoming a prostitute, (though I really like the idea of "prostituting yourself", which would be gender-neutral and rather nice homiletically). AYK, it's not necessarily literal prostitution that's intended here, but rather profane sexuality in general, so probably more to do with lust than financial greed.

Note that elsewhere in Tanach, there is a prohibition on selling your daughters into prostitution; nowhere is it mentioned that thou shalt not become a prostitute. That may be because it's not seen as something that women do voluntarily, or it may simply be that women rarely have any agency at all in terms of the mitzvot. (In Torah, that is, in the rabbinic tradition women clearly are subject to mitzvot, though exempt from some of them.)