''Am haaretz'' () is a term found in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' rabbinic literature Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire corpus of works authored by rabbis throughout Jewish history. The term typically refers to literature from the Talmudic era (70–640 CE), as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic ...

Grammar

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

the word usually is a

collective noun In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people (" ...

, but occasionally is pluralized as עמי הארץ ''amei ha-aretz'' "peoples of the land" or (in

Late Biblical Hebrew Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...

) super-pluralized as עמי הארצות ''amei ha-aratzot'' "peoples of the lands". In

Mishnaic Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew () is the Hebrew language used in Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (c. 1–200 CE, also called Tannaim, Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew I), which w ...

and later, the term refers to a single person: one such person is called an ''am ha-aretz'', and multiple are ''amei ha-aretz.'' In

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

the usual plurals are ''am ha-aretz'' and ''amei ha-aretz'', but the super-plural ''amei ha-aratzot'' is occasionally used. In

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

and Yeshivish, it is often pluralized עמי הארצים ''amei ha-aratzim'' or עמרצים ''amaratzim''.

Tanakh

In the Tanakh, the term "the people of the land" refers to a special social group or caste within the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

. Among the activities of the biblical people of the land was the revolt against

Athaliah Athaliah ( ''Gotholía''; ) was the daughter of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel of Israel; she was queen consort of kingdom of Judah, Judah as the wife of Jehoram of Judah, King Jehoram, a descendant of King David, and was later queen regnant c. 84 ...

. By contrast, the plural refers to foreigners, either the nations of the world or the native

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite population living in the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

. In the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

, the people of the land are contrasted with those returning from the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

, "Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building". It is unclear whether the term refers to the people of Judah who remained behind and adopted syncretistic views or to non-Hebrews. Rubenstein (2003) considers that in the

Book of Ezra The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed Mikraot Gedolot, rabbinic bib ...

and

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

, it designates the rural Jews who had remained in the land while the aristocratic and priestly classes were deported to exile in Babylonia. In the view of Magnar Kartveit (2009), the terms used in Ezra and Nehemiah may not be precise in their distinctions; there may be implication that the "people of the land" (Ezra 4:4) had intermarried with the "peoples of the lands" (Ezra 9:1 ''ammei ha'aretzoth''), and there may be an equation or relation with the origin of the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

Rabbinic Judaism

Usage of the term ''am ha'aretz'' in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Hasmonean period and hence in the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

. The

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

applies "the people of Land" to uneducated Jews, who were deemed likely to be negligent in their observance of the commandments due to their ignorance, and the term combines the meanings of "rustic" with those of "boorish, uncivilized, ignorant". In antiquity (Hasmonean to the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

, 140 BCE–70 CE), the ''am ha'aretz'' were the uneducated rustic population of

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

, as opposed to the learned factions of the

Pharisees The Pharisees (; ) were a Jews, Jewish social movement and school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. Following the Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70), destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Pharisaic beliefs became ...

Sadducees The Sadducees (; ) were a sect of Jews active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are described in contemporary literary sources in contrast to ...

. The ''am ha'aretz'' were of two types, the ''am ha'aretz le-mitzvot'', Jews disparaged for not scrupulously observing the commandments, and the ''am ha'aretz la-Torah'', those stigmatized as ignoramuses for not having studied the Torah at all. The ''am ha'aretz'' are denounced in a very late and exceptional passage in

Talmud Bavli The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewis ...

Pesahim 49, where they are contrasted with the '' chachamim'' ("wise") and '' talmidei chachamim'' ("wise students", i.e. scholars of the Talmud). The text contains the rabbinical teaching that no man should marry the daughter of an ''am ha'aretz'' because if he should die or be exiled, his sons will then also be ''ammei ha'aretz'' (see Jewish matrilineality). A man should rather sell all his possessions in order to afford marriage to a daughter of a ''talmid chacham''. Marriage of a ''talmid chacham'' to a daughter of an ''am ha'aretz'' is compared to the crossbreeding of grapevine with wild wine, which is "unseemly and disagreeable". The ''am ha'aretz'' is often contrasted with the chaber - a term used to describe someone scrupulous enough in Jewish law (namely laws of ritual purity and tithes) for an observant Jews of Second temple times to eat at their house. It too later evolved into a term to describe Torah knowledge - in this case a high degree of it.

References

Sources

*Mayer Sulzberger, ''The Am Ha-aretz, The Ancient Hebrew Parliament: A Chapter In The Constitutional History Of Ancient Israel'' (1910) *A'haron Oppenheimer, ''The ʻam ha-aretz: a study in the social history of the Jewish people in the Hellenistic-Roman period'', vol. 8 of Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums, Brill Archive, 1977, .

External links

Am ha’aretz
by Rabbi Julian Sinclair, October 28, 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Am Ha'Aretz Ethno-cultural designations Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible Society of Israel Jews in the Land of Israel