לָעַז

From the study of Psalm 114:1

Range of meaning

It appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Context, ancient translations and later Hebrew agree on the meaning: speaking a foreign language, speaking in a way that cannot be understood. BDB gives 'talk indistinctly, unintelligibly.' HALOT gives 'speak in a foreign language.' In rabbinic Hebrew the noun la'az simply means 'a foreign language.' The Mishnah (Megillah 2:1) allows the Esther scroll to be read 'to foreign-speakers in la'az,' and medieval Jewish commentators such as Rashi called their Old French glosses le'azim.

Against the English

BSB 'of foreign tongue,' WEB 'of foreign language,' KJV (followed by ESV and NASB 1995) 'of strange language,' YLT 'a strange people' (which drops the language idea), NLT 'that foreign land' (which also drops it), Douay-Rheims 'a barbarous people.' Modern readers hear 'strange' as 'weird' and 'barbarous' as 'savage.' Neither is what the Hebrew says.

How it drifted

'Strange' (from Old French estrange, Latin extraneus, 'from outside') meant 'foreign' in 1611, a sense English has mostly lost. 'Barbarous' comes from the Septuagint and Vulgate 'barbaros/barbarus.' In Greek that word first meant someone whose speech sounds like 'bar-bar,' a non-Greek speaker. The later English sense of 'cruel, uncivilised' crept in afterwards.

Used elsewhere in the period

Septuagint: ek laou barbarou, 'from a barbarian [foreign-speaking] people.' Vulgate: de populo barbaro. Related biblical ideas: Ps 81:5 (Heb 81:6), 'I heard a language I did not know,' also set in Egypt; Deut 28:49 and Jer 5:15, a nation 'whose language you will not understand' as a mark of foreign domination; Isa 28:11 and 33:19, 'stammering lips,' 'a people of obscure speech.' The Israelites held on to their own speech in Egypt as part of their identity, a theme later Jewish tradition developed (e.g., Midrash on Israel keeping its names and language).