Reconsidering the Early Rabbinic “Miqweh”

This study reconsiders the meaning of the term “miqweh” in early rabbinic literature and challenges its common rendering as “immersion pool” or “ritual bath.” Surveying biblical and Second Temple texts, it demonstrates that “miqweh” originally indicated a general “gathering of water” and was not associated with purificatory bathing. Only in early rabbinic sources did the term acquire a specialized, legal-technical sense, referring to pooled water within the narrow context of ritual purification through immersion in water. This semantic shift likely derives from rabbinic interpretation of Leviticus 11:36 and reflects broader patterns of legal abstraction in rabbinic discourse. Crucially, the study shows that “miqweh” never referred to the physical installation or structure containing the water; instead, terms such as “mǝʿārâ” (“cave”) and “bêt haṭṭǝbîlâ” (“place of immersion”) were used for such spaces. These two terms, the study tentatively suggests, likely emerged before the more abstract “miqweh” was coined.