Let's look at two Hebrew words for clown - ?ֵ??ָ? leitzan and ??ּ?ְ??ֹ? mukion.
Leitzan is the more common of the two, so we'll start by examining it. It first appears in Rabbinic Hebrew, meaning "scorner, scoffer, mocker, jester." It is parallel to the biblical ?ֵ? letz, which is both a verb "to scorn, scoff" and also a substantive noun meaning "scorner, scoffer."
The word letz appears in the opening verse of the book of Tehillim:
?ַ?ְׁ?ֵ? ?ָ?ִ??ׁ ?ֲ?ֶׁ? ?ֹ? ?ָ?ַ?ְ ?ַּ?ֲ?ַ? ?ְ?ָׁ?ִ?? ?ּ?ְ?ֶ?ֶ?ְ ?ַ?ָּ?ִ?? ?ֹ? ?ָ?ָ? ?ּ?ְ??ֹ?ַׁ? ?ֵ?ִ?? ?ֹ? ?ָ?ָׁ?׃
"Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or sat in the session of scoffers." (Tehillim 1:1)
In a Talmudic commentary on this verse, we can see the transformation from letz to leitzan:
?????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ???
"Nor sat in the seat of the scornful (Psalms 1:1) - this means that Abraham did not sit in the seat of the Philistines, because they were scorners who engaged in jest and buffoonery." (Avoda Zara 19a)
The word letz, in turn, derives from the root ???, which also provides the verb hitlotzetz ?ִ?ְ??ֹ?ֵ?. That verb originally meant "to act as a scoffer" (as in Yeshaya 28:22), but today means "to joke, to jest."
There is another meaning of ??? - "to translate, intercede." Klein lists this root as distinct from the one we mentioned earlier. However, the Academy of the Hebrew Language suggests that both roots (??? or perhaps ???) derive from an earlier meaning "to speak." One sense would have diverged to mocking speech, and the other to translating or interceding speech, like the melitz ?ֵּ?ִ?? (interpreter) mentioned in Bereshit 42:23. In the way an ambassador might serve as both a translator and an advocate, the sense of "intercessor" also developed (for example, Iyov 33:23). From here came the verb ?ִ?ְ?ִ?? himlitz - "to recommend".
Let's return to the sense of leitzan as "scoffer, scorner." This negative connotation is clear in another Talmudic passage in Avoda Zara. Again, the Talmud cites Tehillim 1:1, this time to criticize the Roman stadium culture:
????? ?????????? ??????? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ???? (????? ?, ?) ???? ???? ??? ?? ???
With regard to one who goes to stadiums where people are killed in contests with gladiators or beasts, or to a camp of besiegers where different forms of entertainment are provided for the besieging army, and he sees there the acts of the diviners and those who cast spells, or the acts of the clowns known as bukiyon, or mukiyon, or muliyon, or luliyon, or belurin, or salgurin, this is categorized as “the seat of the scornful”; and with regard to such places the verse states: “Happy is the man that has not walked in the council of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.” (Avoda Zara 18b)
The Talmud says that one who watches the acts of those various clowns is like one who sits in the seat of the scornful - the letzim. Rashi, in his commentary on the passage, refers to these clowns as leitzanim:
?????? ?????? ?????? ??????? - ???? ???? ?????? ??:
Elon Gilad, in this article, notes that neither the Talmudic passage nor Rashi were attempting to present these clowns in a positive light. They were derided negatively, as scoffers. But he suggests that the linkage between leitzan and "clown" (as opposed to simply "scoffer") was due to the immense influence Rashi had. In later medieval culture clowns took on a more positive, entertaining role, and when 19th century writers of early modern Hebrew were looking for a word for clown, leitzan fit the bill.
The Talmudic passage mentioned six types of clowns, but only one of them still is in use today - albeit much smaller than leitzan - the mukion. (The clown term luliyan ??ּ?ְ?ָ? was later adopted for the word "acrobat.") The term mukion, like the previous term bukion, likely refer to the characters Maccus and Buccus, found in the Roman plays known as the Atellan Farce. Maccus and Buccus were both clowns, Maccus being the most popular of the stock characters in those plays. The etymology of Maccus isn't fully clear, but some suggest that it might be related distantly to the English word "mock."
Today mukion is rarely used, but when it is, it will refer to a professional or artistic role of an actual performing clown, while a leitzan can also refer to anyone who is joking around or acting foolishly.
One more Hebrew word should be mentioned in this discussion. In Tehillim 73:8, we find the root ??? (or ???) in its only appearance in the Tanakh:
?ָ?ִ???ּ ?ִ??ַ?ְּ??ּ ?ְ?ָ? ?ֹ?ֶׁ? ?ִ?ָּ??ֹ? ?ְ?ַ?ֵּ??ּ׃
"They scoff and plan evil; from their eminence they plan wrongdoing."
As with any word that only appears once in Biblical Hebrew, it's not easy to pin down its meaning. But most translations say it means "to scoff" or "to deride." Linguists suggest that it comes from Aramaic influence, where the cognate root has a similar meaning. In fact, the Aramaic Targum to Tehillim 1:1 translates letzim as ?ְ?ִ?ְ?ֵ? memiknei, from that same root. So too does the Targum translate the verb ??? in Mishlei 9:12 as ?ֵ?ִ?? memik.
While the Hebrew root ??? certainly has a parallel in the Aramaic ???, there doesn't seem to be strong evidence that ??? is the root of mukion (and certainly not Maccus). It's likely just a coincidence, but one that may have strengthened the impression at the time that the mukion clown was also a scoffer.
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