Dictionary:חֹתֵן – חֹתֶנֶת/0

חֹתֵן / חֹתֶנֶת

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חֹתֵן / חֹתֶנֶת

Part of Speech	Noun
Occurrences	21 / 1
Possible Meanings	Wife's father Wife's brother Wife's relatives
Related Entries	חָתָן, חתן, חֲתֻנָּה
Lexical Category	Kinship

Possible Meanings

1. Wife's father / mother

• Biblical verses – Shofetim 19:4,7,9. חֹתֶנֶת appears only once in Tanakh – Devarim 27:23.
• Exegetes disagree as to whether "חֹתֵן" or חֹתֶנֶת can also have any other meanings – see below.¹
• Etymology – "חֹתֵן" is used in Tanakh to refer to the father of the wife with whom the חָתָן (husband) contracts the marriage – see חתן.
• For the parents of the husband, see below regarding חם and חמות.

2. Wife's brother

• Biblical verses – See Disputed Cases below for a full list of possible verses.
• Ibn Janach in his Sefer HaShorashim (חתן) maintains that the term "חֹתֵן", can mean both wife's father and wife's brother.² If the root חתן describes the contracting of a marital relationship between two families, it is possible that the term "חֹתֵן" might apply also to other relatives of the wife, or at least those who might also be involved in giving her over in marriage, such as her brother or grandfather. See Yitro's Names for further discussion and ramifications of this issue.
• Semitic cognates – Arabic hatan = circumcise (cf. Shemot 4:25-26, Bereshit 34), son-in-law, wife's father, wife's brother.³

3. Wife's other relatives

• Biblical verses – See Disputed Cases below for a full list of possible verses.
• Additional data –

Disputed Cases

חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה

• Shemot 3:1, Shemot 4:18, Shemot 18:1,2,5,6,7,8,12(2X),14,15,17,24,27, Bemidbar 10:29, Shofetim 1:16, Shofetim 4:11 – see above.
• There are various people referred to as "חֹתֵן מֹשֶׁה" and it is unclear what the relationships are between these characters and between them and Moshe. For more, see Yitro's Names.

Relationship to Synonyms

חם / חמות

• While "חֹתֵן" refers exclusively to the husband's father-in-law, the Biblical term for the wife's father-in-law is חם – see Bereshit 38:13,25 and Shemuel I 4:19,21.
• While "חֹתֵן" refers exclusively to the husband's mother-in-law, the Biblical term for the wife's mother-in-law is חמות – see Rut 1-3 and Mikhah 7:6.
• For other relationship terms which distinguish between relatives of the husband and wife, see dod (דוד) and mesaref (מסרף).

Semantic Evolution

Intra-Biblical

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Rabbinic Hebrew

Rabbinic Hebrew did not preserve the distinction between relatives of the husband and wife, and it uses חם and חמות to refer also to the parents of the wife – see Mishna Demai 3:6, Pesachim 3:7, Yevamot 1:1, Ketubot 1:5, Sanhedrin 9:1.

Modern Hebrew

In Modern Hebrew, there is no distinction between relatives of the husband and wife, and the terms חותן/חותנת and חם/חמות are used interchangeably.

¹ Shadal limits it to the meaning of wife's father, pointing out that if the words could have other meanings (like Ibn Janach below) the prohibition of sleeping with a חותנת in Devarim 27:23 would be ambiguous.

² Ibn Janach refers explicitly to the multiple meanings of the Arabic counterpart of "חֹתֵן" – see below. Ibn Ezra Bemidbar 10:29, another Andalusian exegete, may also have been influenced by the Arabic parallel. Menachem Leibtag points out that if "חֹתֵן" can only mean wife's father, the phrase "choteno, the father of the young woman" in Shofetim 19:4,9 would be redundant. In contrast, see Shadal in the note above.

³ See note above regarding possible influence on Ibn Janach and Ibn Ezra.