The Scroll of Esther jumps straight into the action, setting the scene of a lavish party that King Achashverosh threw in his third year. After partying for 180 days, Achashverosh made a post-party party for the residents of Shushan, and on the seventh day of that second party, he summoned his wife Queen Vashti to appear before him. When Vashti refused her husband's order, Achashverosh consulted with the wise jurists who were said to “know dat and din,” and tried to determine how he should proceed and if he should punish his wife (Est. 1-13). In this essay, we attempt to understand the difference between the nearly-synonymous terms dat and din.
The word dat — often (mis)translated as “religion” — appears twenty times in the Scroll of Esther. Besides being used to describe the body of knowledge that Achashverosh’s lawyers had mastered, dat is also used, for example, when saying that the drinking in Achashverosh’s was “according to the dat, without duress” (Est. 1:8); when saying that Achashverosh consulted with the lawyers to figure out “according to the dat, what to do with the queen Vashti” (Est. 1:15); and when Haman that Haman told the king that Jews practice a dat that is different from all other nations and that they do not do the king's dat (Est. 3:8). The word also makes an appearance both when the king promulgated that the Jews should be wiped out and when he later promulgated that the Jews had the right to defend themselves — "the dat was given in Shushan the capital" (Est. 3:15, 8:14). The only other instance of the word dat in the Hebrew parts of the Bible is in Ezra 8:36 (although there might also be one instance in Deuteronomy, see below). The word dat or data appears another 14 times in the Aramaic parts of Daniel and Ezra.
There are several proper names associated with the Hebrew word dat, such as the place-name Dothan (Gen. 37:17), according to Old Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeshev §12); the personal name Dathan (Num. 16:1); according to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b), and the personal name Jedothan (Ps. 62:1), according to Yalkut Shimoni (there).
In contemporary discourse, the Hebrew term dati refers to “religious,” and is often associated with the dati leumi (“religious Zionist”) movement. Secular Jews in Israel often refer to religious Jews derisively as dosim (emphasizing the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the letter TAV as SAV in the word dat). But as we will see below, the original meaning of the word dat might have nothing to do with religion, per se.
Turning briefly to the word din (often translated as “judgement”), this term appears multiple times in the Bible, but only twice in the Pentateuch when the Torah states that the Sanhedrin which sits in the Temple is charge with deciding between “din and din” (Deut. 17:8).
Rabbi Avraham Bedersi in Chotam Tochnit (a work devoted to Hebrew synonyms) discusses the words dat and din, but does not treat them as a pair of synonyms. Rather, he discusses the word din as a potential synonym of mishpat, but differentiates between the two by explaining that din refers to the controversy or "fight" between two opposing litigants, while mishpat refers to the verdict rendered in defusing a din. He explains that because din refers to the argument itself, a litigant is known as a baal din in Rabbinic Hebrew (Avot 4:22). A similar point is implied about the rabbinic term g’mar din, which refers to a judicial decision or sentencing. Two entries later, Rabbi Bedersi treats the word dat as an ostensible synonym of chok, but how exactly he differentiates between those two terms is not quite clear. What is clear is that Rabbi Bedersi rejects Ibn Janach’s definition of dat as referring to brit (“covenant/treaty/agreement”), and instead prefers to see dat as essentially coterminous with din! [Interestingly, Targum Onkelos translates mishpat as din (Ex. 21:1), and then a few verses later, he translates mishpat as halachah (Ex. 21:9).]
So now we’re back at our starting point, what’s the difference between dat and din? Over the generations, numerous answers have been offered towards answering this question, and many of those various explanations are similar to each other with only slight nuances between them. In what follows, we offer a simplified overview of the different answers proffered, but to really do the topic justice would require going through all instances of the words dat and din in the Bible to see which of these answers is the most convincing.
When Rabbi Shmuel Laniado discusses the words dat and din, he is quite clear that one of those terms refers to “the Torah’s laws,” while the other either refers to pragmatic courses of action to be taken under specific temporary circumstances or to the rules/laws set by the ruling government. The problem with Rabbi Laniado’s explanation is that he himself is unsure about which term refers to which system of jurisprudence.
Rabbi Yosef Nechemias (to Est. 1:13) writes that din refers to the letter of the law, while dat refers to what was practiced in reality. He writes that Achashverosh understood that even if by the letter of the law, Vashti was within her rights to not appear before the king when summoned (din), there still might be grounds for punishing her as an extra-judicial deterrent against those wishing to disobey the king (dat). This is why the Scroll of Ester uses the word dat before din, even though theoretically the din should take precedence over the dat.
Ibn Ezra (to Est. 1:3) explains that dat refers to the law of the land (in the case of Esther, the laws of the Persian and Median kings), while din refers to the specific verdict that would be decreed on the offender in question (Vashti). Alternatively, Ibn Ezra suggests (and this explanation is also cited by Rabbi Moshe Chalavah in his comments there) that dat refers to what which is dictated by Divine fate, while din refers to that which is decreed by the astrological forces.
The Maharal of Prague explains that dat refers to the laws officially dictated by the established/prevailing norms within a given polity (essentially, common law), while din refers to those laws that are presumed to be true through intellect. Alternatively, he explains that dat refers to the law as it relates to man and himself (like ethics, morality, and religion), while din refers to the law as it relates to man and his fellow men (like civil law). Rabbi Yosef Zecharia Stern likewise writes that dat refers to the norms of a country as needed for general governance or under specific situations (a pragmatic consideration), while din refers to "justice" as set in law (a logical/moral consideration).
Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer writes that dat refers to “the rule of law” (whether that law is dictated by Divine revelation or simply societal norms), while mishpat refers to the “judiciary discretion” in choosing between various legal outcomes and din refers specifically to the “penal system” that metes out punishments to those who violate the law.
In the context of Achashverosh, Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin explains that din refers to a system of promulgating law based on logic and rationality, while dat refers to a ruler's royal prerogative to pass laws by fiat, even if they do not fit the test of rationality. When Haman slandered the Jews by saying they do not follow the dat of the king, he alluded to the Halachic notion that dina d'malchuta dina (see Gittin 6b), which means that when the ruling government promulgates a din, it is recognized as Halacha. Haman claimed that the Jews only followed Achashverosh's din (which are rules rooted in rationality), but not his dat (which could be irrational), thus demonstrating their disloyalty to him. Rabbi Tzadok further writes that when it comes to Judaism, the terms dat and din are a tandem that refer to the Written Torah and Oral Torah, as both are necessary in order for one to properly keep the Law.
If we want to go for an etymology-based approach to differentiating between dat and din, then our best bet is to consult with Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim’s work. In his Cheshek Shlomo, Rabbi Pappenheim traces the word dat to the biliteral DALET-TAV or the monoliteral root DALET. He sees the core meaning of that root and, hence of dat, as referring to practices that are done by force of “custom” (whether a custom adopted by an individual person, an entire family, or an entire nation). [Rabbi Pappenheim also sees the word odot (“about/on the topic of”) as related to the same root as dat, but I don’t want to get into that here.]
He explicitly contrasts this with the other words we have seen for “rules/laws,” by explaining that mishpat refers to practices demanded by ethics/morality and chok refers to practices demanded by the law of the land. To better illustrate these differences, Rabbi Pappenheim writes that the obligation to pay one's worker is a mishpat, the obligation to pay one's taxes is a chok, and the "obligation" to pay a person who brings good news is a dat. [For more about the words chok and mishpat, see my earlier essay “Laws and Orders” (July 2019).]
In that same work, Rabbi Pappenheim traces the word din to the biliteral root DALET-NUN. He defines that root as "judicial decision-making and execution." Words that derive from this root according to Rabbi Pappenheim include dan (the verb for "judging"), din (the noun "justice/judgement"), dayyan (“judge”), madon ("litigation"), adon ("master/lord," i.e. a person who has jurisdiction to make decisions about another person, like a husband over his wife or a master over his slave), Adonai ("Hashem," a name of God that refers to His role as the master of all creation), and medinah ("province," a geographical area that falls within the jurisdiction of a common court system). We can add that the masculine given names Dan, Daniel, and Avidan, as well as the feminine given name Dinah, are all derived from this root.
Although Rabbi Pappenheim traces dat to the root DALET-(TAV), others actually trace the root of dat to the same etymon as din. For example, in his Hebrew dictionary, Avraham Even-Shoshan claims that the TAV at the end of dat is a suffix added to din, while the NUN from din is dropped to become dat. According to this, dat and din not only mean similar things, but are actually derived from the same root. A similar understanding is proposed by Yehoshua Yaron in Mevo L’Midrash HaLashon.
Nonetheless, the prevailing understanding in scholarly circles is that the word dat derives from Old Iranian. This etymology was first proposed by Gesenius, who traced the Hebrew/Aramaic dat to the Persian word dāta, which is the passive past participle form of the verb da ("giving"). Nowadays, linguists trace da to the Proto-Indo-European roots dō- and dǝ- which both mean "to give." Either way, in the academic world, the Persian etymology of dat is taken for granted, as Benjamin J. Noonan writes in his 2019 work Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, "No reason exists to reject this loan hypothesis, and Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dat undoubtedly come from Old Iranian dāta-" (page 89).
Our final synonym for this essay is the Rabbinic Hebrew word nimus. This word does not appear in the Bible, but does appear once in the Mishnah. The Mishnah rules that a husband who commissions an agent to write and deliver a get to his wife, must clearly state that this is his intention and cannot use any other verbiage that merely “hints” to what he wants the agent to do. In other words, the Mishnah says that if the husband tells his agent, "write a get and give it to my wife," then the agent should do precisely that. But if the husband says, "free her,” “sustain her,” “do for her like the nimus,” or “do for her as fit," then he has not given explicit enough instructions for the agent to justify writing and delivering a gett on the husband's behalf (Gittin 6:5). In this case, the term nimus refers to “the law,” but since the husband’s intent is not clear enough from this terminology, it cannot be used when appointing an agent to carry out the divorce.
The term nimus appears in the Jerusalemic and Babylonian Talmuds in several other contexts, for example like when saying that Mordechai was “crowned by his nimusim” (Megillah 12b). Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur in Meturgaman and Sefer Tishbi points out that the word nimus is used by Targum to render the Hebrew chok (Lev. 18:3), mishpat (I Sam. 2:13, I Kgs. 18:28, Ezek. 5:7, 20:18), and torah (Ps. 1:2, Prov. 1:8). Moreover, many of the sources we mentioned above that discuss the word dat actually use the rabbinic term nimus to help them define what dat means. That said, Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles in his work Ma’ase Nissim writes that nimus refers to the “rules and regulations” set by society, while dat refers to the rules commanded by God.
The word nimus is actually a loanword from Greek. The donor term in Greek is nomos, which means “law,” and it seems that the rabbis modified the word’s pronunciation slightly to become nimus. Readers might be familiar with nomos because it is at the etymological base of several English words including economy, astronomy, autonomy, antinomy, nomism, antinomianism, and nomic. In fact, the name Deuteronomy given to the fifth book of the Pentateuch comes from duet (meaning “two/twice”) and nomos meaning “law.” In other words, that Biblical book is viewed as repetition or restatement of the Law, and its name is a direct Greek translation of the name Mishneh Torah that Chazal give to that book. In Modern Hebrew, the term nimus has shed its original legal connotation and has shifted semantically to mean “manners/etiquette.”
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In describing the Sinaitic Revelation, Moses states: “Hashem came from Sinai and shined forth from Seir / He appeared from Mount Paran and came from the holy myriads / to His right, there is an aishdat for Him” (Deut. 33:2). The meaning of the term aishdat is quite obscure, and various ways of dealing with that problematic lexeme have been suggested (including Bible critics’ heretical emendation of the penultimate letter). The Masoretic tradition deals with this issue by dictating that aishdat be read as two words aish (“fire”) and dat (“law/religion”). Following this tradition, Menachem Ibn Saruk in Machberet Menachem cites this verse in his entry on the word dat (as opposed to Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon and Radak who do not list this verse as an example of dat in the Bible).
The Masoretic reading gives way to various explanations about the Torah reflecting a “religion of fire” (Nachmanides there), being given through fire (Targum Onkelos there), and the primordial Torah being written on fire (Rashi there). Abarbanel (there) explains that the Torah is called aish-dat because there are two faces to Judaism: On the one hand, like a “fire” (aish) the Torah “burns up” those who sin, yet on the other hand, the Torah provides a “legal” (dat) framework for those who want to act justly.
Rabbi Shamshon Raphael Hirsch (to Deut. 33:2) explains the word dat as related to the triliteral root DALET-VAV-TAV, attested to primarily in Mishnaic Hebrew. For example, the word dut refers to a “cistern/well” in the Mishnah (Rosh HaShanah 3:7, Bava Batra 4:2, Keilim 5:6, 7:1, Ohalot 5:6) and always appears alongside the word bor (“pit”). As Rabbi Hirsch explains, the difference between a dut and a bor is that while a bor is dug into the underground, a dut is constructed above ground level. This means that dut refers to a water-hole which exists on the same plane as people walk, not underneath. Just as life-giving water gathers in a dut in a way that people can easily interact with it, so does dat provide Divine guidelines for life in a way that people can easily apply it to themselves. Rabbi Hirsch clarifies that although in his understanding, dat is primarily defined as “Divinely-given law,” the term is borrowed in the Book of Esther to refer even to “royally-dictated law.”
To explain the term aish dat, Rabbi Hirsch writes that the contours of a raging fire are ever-changing, and because of this, the “fire” corresponds to the ever-changing circumstances of life and the always-in-flux vicissitudes of the human experience. When Hashem gave us the Torah, that gift serves to provide us with Divine guidance and instructions for every type of situation. It thus alleviates the problem of the unknown in the “fire” of life.
Rabbi Hirsch continues his discussion by suggesting a phonetic connection between dat (DALET-TAV) and dod (DALET-DALET), via the interchangeability of the letters DALET and TAV. He sees dod (“uncle”) as a close relative charged with offering his nieces and nephews the same sort of help as expected from one’s parents. In doing so, Rabbi Hirsch implies that Hashem likewise gave us the Torah as a form of avuncular support to help the Jewish People deal with the aish that is life. Rabbi Hirsch also suggests connecting the words dat and dod to dud (“pot”) and dad (“breast”). [For more about these last three words, see “Say Uncle” (April 2021) and “Nursing from the Good” (Aug. 2024).]
If the Hebrew/Aramaic word dat is actually sourced in Old Persian (as we wrote above), then how did it end up in the Pentateuch, which was written before the Jews ever interacted with the Persians? Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim La'Mikra to Deut. 33:2) writes that he is not bothered by the presence of a Persian word dat in this context because he sees examples of Egyptian, Greek, and possibly even Latin words in the Pentateuch.
On the other hand, there is a stream of commentators who take the word aishdat as written (ktiv), without splitting into two words as the Masoretic tradition demands for its reading (kri). In that spirit, Shadal (to Deut. 33:2) explains aish-dat as a form of the word ashdot or eshed. Those Biblical Hebrew terms refer to a “waterfall” or “mountainous incline” (see Num. 21:15, Deut. 3:17, 4:49, Josh. 10:40, 12:3, 12:8, 13:20) and derive from the triliteral Hebrew root ALEPH-SHIN-DALET. Shadal’s student Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi (Otzar Nirdafim §402) traces these words to the Aramaic root SHIN-DALET-ALEPH (“pouring”), as the “slope of a mountain” is from whence melted snow or canyon waters flow out. Interestingly, Ibn Janach in his Sefer HaShorashim rejects the view of Abu Omar Ibn Yaqwi (a Hebrew grammarian from Corodoba, Spain) who like Shadal argued that aish-dat derives from the Hebrew root ALEPH-SHIN-DALET, and Ibn Janach instead follows the Masoretic view that sees aish-dat as a portmanteau of aish and dat. [Ohrnet]
