Even though back in ancient times, they may not have had all the complex financial instruments that we use nowadays, people were certainly well-aware of the concept of “money,” and its use as legal tender. In this essay, we look at several terms in Mishnaic Hebrew that refer to the idea of “money,” and try to differentiate between these apparent synonyms. Those words include mammon, damim, maot, zuzim, and more. In doing so, we will touch on issues of etymology, history, and much more.

We begin the discussion with the word mammon. This word does not appear even once in the Bible, but already appears with much frequency in the Mishnah. For example, the Mishnah (Brachot 9:5) interprets Deut. 6:5 as saying that one ought to love Hashem “with all of your money [mammon].” Similarly, mammon appears when giving a possible reason as to why somebody would be kidnapped (Ketubot 2:9), and when relating the Halachic rule of doble jeopardy whereby a person liable for the death penalty is exempt from “monetary” payment (Ketubot 3:2). In one particularly fascinating passage in the Mishnah (Bava Batra 10:8), Rabbi Yishmael states that one who wishes to become wise should engage in the laws of mammonot (“monetary/financial law”).

Besides appearing in the Mishnah, the word mammon also appears in the Targumim (that is, the Aramaic translations of the Bible). To that end, Rabbi Natan of Rome in Sefer HeAruch and Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (in Sefer Tishbi and Meturgaman) write that the Biblical Hebrew words hon (“wealth”) and rechush (“property”) are typically translated by Targum into Aramaic as mammon. [From more about the word rechush and its counterpart nechasim, see my earlier essay “Prime Property” (Nov. 2022).]

The Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah §22:8) expounds on the word mammon as an allusion to the phrase mah atah moneh — eino kelum (“what are you counting? It is nothing”). This exegesis partially suggests that the root of the word mammon lies in the Hebrew root MEM-NUN-(HEY), which refers to “counting” (see below). However, Rabbi Ernest Klein in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew (and also in his etymological dictionary of English) writes that the word mammon most probably derives from the word ma’amon (“trust” or “deposit”), which is, in turn, derived from the triliteral root ALEPH-MEM-NUN (“true/trustworthy”), with the initial MEM being radical to the core root.

The word mammon also appears in the Christian Bible as the personification/deification of the greedy pursuit of money/wealth. The way Rabbi Yitzchok Schmelkes of Lvov (1827–1905) explains it in responsa Beis Yitzchak (Yoreh Deah vol. 1 §152), Mammon was originally the name of the pagan god of silver/money, but then eventually came to be a regular word for “money.”

On a more esoteric plane, Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (known as the Chida) points out that the name of each letter in the word mammon (MEM, VAV, NUN) is spelled by doubling that letter. This alludes to the fact that “those who love money are never satisfied with money” (Ecc. 5:9), so when they have one MEM they want another MEM, and when they have one VAV, they want another VAV, and so forth. (For a similar explanation, see Hafla’ah to Ketubot 66b).

It is generally understood that the Hebrew term damim in the sense of “money” does not occur in Biblical Hebrew, but is nonetheless a mainstay of Rabbinic Hebrew. In other words, even if this usage of damim does not occur in the Bible, it certainly occurs in the Mishnah. To that end, we find the plural form damim in the Mishnah in multiple places (Maaser Sheini 1:5, Pesachim 7:3, Kiddushin 1:6, Bava Metzia 5:3, Bava Batra 2:7, Arachin 5:2, Temurah 5:5), plus we encounter the construct form dmei in even more cases (Terumot 5:1, 6:3–4, 9:2–3, Maaser Sheini 1:4, 2:1, Pesachim 9:8, Ketubot 12:1–2, Nazir 4:4, Bava Kamma 5:4, 8:1–2, 9:1, 9:4, 10:4, Bava Metzia 3:5, 3:12, Zevachim 8:1–2, Bechorot 5:6, Arachin 5:2–3, Meilah 3:2, Kinnim 1:4). Interestingly, HaBachur (in Sefer........

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