The Word-Name Adam

There’s an interesting difference of opinion regarding the origins of the word-name “Adam” which God gave to the first living being on Earth. Non-LDS Hebraists generally agree that the name was derived from the Hebrew word for “earth, soil, dirt”, אֲדָמָה (ah-dah-MAH). That would make sense because Adam’s physical body was created from the dust of the Earth, to which it returned once he died.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19)

However, according to LDS scripture it’s the other way around. Rather than the Hebrew word for “earth, dust” being the origin of “Adam”, we're taught that God assigned that name to the first man long before Hebrew existed as a distinct language. The lone reference in the LDS Standard Works to the origin and meaning of the word-name “Adam” is found in the Book of Moses, a collection of passages from Joseph Smith’s translation of the Old Testament. Moses 1:34 reads:

“And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many.” (emphasis added)

This Divinely revealed definition dovetails seamlessly with the Genesis teaching that not only did God assign the name-title Adam to the first man whom He created, but also to Adam and Eve, as the first couple.

"Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:2, emphasis added)

Only a man and a woman united together may become the instruments of God to create many. In this sense, everyone who is fruitful and multiplies and replenishes the Earth, whether male or female, becomes "Adam," or many. In LDS theology, the same applies in the hereafter to those who are obedient to God's laws but haven't been able to have children in this life for whatever reason.

Seeing that the word-name “Adam” has no connection to Hebrew words that convey the idea of “many”, such as הָמוֹן hah-MOHN (a noun for “many” or “multitude”), רַבִּים rah-BEEM (an adjective for “many” or “numerous”), and הַרבֵּה hahr-BEH (an adverb meaning “many”, “much”, “plenty”), it follows that words in Hebrew that have etymological connections to “Adam” are only derivations. In fact, the name itself (אָדָם ah-DAHM) was adopted into Hebrew as one of several words that signify “man, person, human being”. Below you’ll find a list of other Hebrew words that most likely owe their origin to the word-name “Adam”:

אֲדָמָה (ah-dah-MAH) – earth, dirt, soil

דָם (dahm) – blood

אָדוֹם (ah-DOHM) – red

אָדָם בֶּן (ben ah-DAHM) – person, man, human being, mortal (literally, “son of man”)

To me, the most interesting words on this list are “blood” and “red” since their connections to the account of Adam and Eve’s creation are less obvious than the word for “earth”. The one comment I’ll make about possible links are that some linguists believe that the Hebrew word “red” more closely relates to the reddish color of human skin than to the red color of blood or the reddish hue of the earth and/or clay from which Adam’s physical body was formed.

"I will be Who I will be."

In the third chapter of Exodus there’s a wonderfully detailed account of a conversation that Moses had with the Lord at the beginning of his ministry as a prophet. In spite of Jehovah’s reassurances that He would qualify him for the work of helping liberate captive Israel from bondage, Moses wondered why he had been chosen to lead God's people and voiced his concern that Pharaoh and even the Israelites themselves wouldn’t believe that the Lord had sent him. During the course of the conversation, the hesitant messenger-to-be asked Jehovah how he should reply when the Israelites asked who had sent him.

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM, and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.”

The self-identifier the Lord uses here, “I AM THAT I AM,” has become one of the best known and (to me, at least) one of the most difficult to understand names that He has assigned Himself. The curious part of the English translation of the Hebrew phrase אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (ehyeh asher ehyeh) is that it was rendered in the present tense in spite of the fact that the verb form the writer used is actually in the future tense. The sentence literally means “I will be Who I will be.”

With that background info out of the way, I’ll bring this down to a personal level. I’ve read that phrase many times, but before reading the passage in the original Hebrew, the Lord’s statement to Moses always seemed very abstract and cryptic to me. It was as if there were some mysterious code to be cracked that I couldn’t quite access. It turns out that, for me, the key to understanding part of what the Lord may have meant was reading His statement in the future tense. It's so much more understandable in my opinion reading the phrase literally.

The doctrinal applications started to flow once I viewed the Lord’s statement as an affirmation made in the present regarding His status and actions that were then future. Here’s what I mean. Jehovah’s comments made at other times regarding His role as the promised Messiah seem to dovetail with what He affirmed to His prophet on that occasion. I now read something along the lines of “I will be Who (I covenanted with you and the rest of the human family to be before the Earth was created, namely your Savior. I am the same yesterday, today, and forever, and I always keep my promises. I will come to Earth in the Meridian of Time, take upon Myself flesh, and live as a mortal, although I will continue to be God, the same as I am now.”)

In “ehyeh asher ehyeh,” I hear an echo of the Lord’s words to the Brother of Jared found in the Book of Mormon (Ether 3:16):

"Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh."

Or in other words, “I will be Who I will be.”

Behold (הִנֵּה) – The Biblical Hebrew meaning (It’s not at all what I thought)

“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Moses 1:39

I need to start with a clarification. In this post I’ll be referring to the word behold only when it functions as a conjunction (a linking word) or an interjection, a part of speech that’s set apart from the main sentence to express intense emotion or focused emphasis. The other usage as a verb, meaning “to look/gaze upon, see, regard, consider,” is already well-understood and doesn’t need clarification or further exploration. The form I’ll comment on is easy to identify since it’s usually set apart by a comma. (As examples, see the verse at the beginning of my post and Isaiah 48:10, “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” (Click on the link below to see the Hebrew text.)

 Isaiah link

Behold is one of those words that appears so frequently in scripture and seems so self-explanatory that in forty plus years of reading, I’ve come to view beholds the same way I do telephone poles alongside the road – I pass them all the time while driving without ever noticing them. I hate to admit that because I strongly believe that the Lord never chooses words lightly when expressing Himself. But in all honesty, over the years I came to consider behold nothing more than a filler word or, at best, an effect-pause/break that provides creative emphasis in sacred speech.

All that changed a few days ago. While flying home from a business trip, I was studying Barron’s “Mastering Hebrew” when I came across the explanation section for one of the dialogues I hadn’t read before. Seemingly out of nowhere the author commented on the significance of the Hebrew equivalent of the word behold when used as a conjunction or interjection. After reading his explanation and looking up various examples in the scriptures, I’ll never be able to casually dismiss the word again. It turns out that behold is anything but a clichéd filler word. Instead, it functions as a neon-red flag that shouts, “Pay very close attention to what comes next, because it’s especially important!” In Biblical Hebrew the word is expressed in varying forms that stem from the most common root, הִנֵּה (hee-NEH), with הֵן (hen) being one example of a variant. (See Genesis 3:22, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.”)

Genesis link

The especially exciting thing for me about this personal discovery is that the usage I described above can be found throughout the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, as well as in the Bible. There are far too many examples to document here – they occur on almost every page when the Lord is speaking or where a prophet is speaking prophetically – so the following ones only represent the tip of the iceberg. Alma 34:32, 3 Nephi 11:10, 3 Nephi 27:13, and Doctrine and Covenants 58:26. (I’ll insert more as I continue to find other examples during my scripture study.) It’s interesting to note that in the most recent revelations that make up the LDS Standard Works, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord chose to continue using behold to call extra attention to His most important sayings and the revelation of key doctrines, in effect showing how valuable this Hebraism has been to Him throughout the ages in His communications with mankind.