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.

The significance of aleph as the 1st letter in the Hebrew alphabet

This is one of those posts that has much more to do with linguistic significance than possible theological relevance, but since some readers might find this subject interesting, I'll go forward. From what I've read, the majority of religiously oriented Classical Hebrew scholars believe that the language is inherently divine, or at a minimum divinely inspired in its orthography (use of written symbols to depict sounds) and its phonology (system of sounds represented by graphemes). I don't know that I completely by into that view, but what I do know is that the language must be especially significant to God since (1) He revealed Himself to the Patriarchs under various Hebrew name-titles and, (2) in Mormon theology, He continues to refer to Himself to modern-day prophets by those same names in many cases.

Aleph - First Letter of the Hebrew Alphabet (click link to view video)

The video that I've imbedded gives some detailed information on the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet א (aleph) and its preeminent significance as the initial letter in the majority of God’s titles. The commentator, Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman, didn’t cite any examples, so I’ve listed the most obvious ones here. (Note to beginning Hebrew students: Hebrew is written from right to left, so in reading the examples I’ve provided below you’ll notice the initial alephs are at the far right of each word.)

Titles of Deity

God (The Father, Eloheem) אלוהים
God (Eloh, El [abbreviated form]) אֱלוֹהַ, אֵל
Lord God (Adonai ) אֲדוֹנָיִ

In addition to what the Rabbi details in the video, it's interesting to note that the letter aleph seems to be associated with all living beings, both Supreme and mortal, since it initializes many references to humanity in general in the Hebrew language. I don’t know why this is, but perhaps, as Rabbi Trugman alluded to, placing the 1^st letter at the head of this class of words is a way of emphasizing the preeminent place of God and his offspring in the Universe, above all other kinds of creation. He mentions the fact that a common word for “man” (adam) also begins with aleph. There are more examples that he didn’t mention, so please refer to the list below.

Titles for Humankind

man (adam) אָדָם

people (anasheem) אֲנָשִׁים

humanity (enosheeyoot) אֶנוֹשִׁיוּת  

race, people (eem) אֹם

(a) man (ish) אִישׁ
(a) woman (isha) אִשָׁה

One omission from the video that ties into the commentator's observations is that fact that an initial aleph also begins all 1^st and 2^nd person personal pronouns. However, 3^rd person pronouns (he, she, they, and it) all begin with the letter ה (heh). I can’t speculate as to why the initial aleph was abandoned in favor of heh when the person(s) speaking (1st person) or the person(s) addressed (2nd person) aren't being referenced in the language, but it’s interesting to note that only interpersonal communication can only take place when an "I" and a "you" are involved. Again, an emphasizing of interpersonal relationships may be at play here.

1st and 2nd Person Personal Pronouns
I (anee) אֲנִי
I, archaic form (anokhee) אָנוֹכִי
We (anakhnu, anu [abbreviated form]) אֲנַחנוּ, אָנוּ
you, masc. singular (ata) אַתָה
you, fem. singular (at) אַת
you, masc. plural (atem) אַתֶם
you, fem. plural (aten) אַתֶן

3^rd Person Personal and Object Pronouns
he/it, masc. (hu) הוא
she/it, fem. (hee) היא
they, masc. (hem) הֵם
they, fem. (hen) הֵן

One final observation: The key role of parents in the family also seems to be emphasized in the language since the titles mother and father both begin with aleph. In contrast, the titles of son and daughter both begin with ב (bet), the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet, perhaps illustrating that in the family order children are subject to their parents.

Family Members

father (av) אָב 

dad, daddy (ahbah) אַבָּא 

mother (em) אֵם

mom, mommy (eema) אִמָא

son (ben) בֵּן

daughter (bat) בַּת

Western singular nouns that have plural endings in Hebrew

One interesting difference between Semitic languages (like Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, etc.) and Western ones is how some of our singular nouns are inherently plural in Semitic languages, ending in the plural suffix “-im (eem)” in Hebrew. Some examples include: water (mayeem, מַיִם), sky (shamayeem, שָׁמַיִם), and life (khayeem, חַיִים). That’s why the scriptures, which are mostly translated literally where these Semitic/Western differences occur, include foreign-sounding constructions like; “the waters of…”, “crossed the great waters”, “looked towards the heavens (sky)”, etc. (See Mosiah 18:8 and Ether 4:9 in the Book of Mormon, and the Biblical references of Genesis 1:2, Exodus 7:20, and 2 Kings 2:8 as examples.) These are all Semitic-origin constructions that became part of the English language translation of the scriptures. Some even sound almost commonplace to people who’ve grown up reading the King James Version of the Bible.

For me, the most interesting plural-ending noun in Hebrew that's singular in English is the word “life”, which in Hebrew literally means “lives”. One possible interpretation is that within each of us lies an innumerable potential posterity. This is significant on many levels. The taking of an innocent life is obviously considered a terrible act in any culture, but in the Semitic tradition it appears to be an even more severe offense against God and one’s community since the sin not only ends the victim's individual life prematurely, but it also prevents “lives” (generations of progeny) from coming into physical being on Earth. Along the same line, the English term “eternal life” is literally translated “eternal lives” in Hebrew (khayeh olam), a phrase that has wonderful implications for the hereafter.

Introduction to my blog

I’ve been self-studying modern and Biblical Hebrew off and on for almost 20 years. While at Brigham Young University I formally studied Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Arabic, and Vulgar (Common) Latin. I have a deep interest in language studies and etymology (the study of word origins and the development of language over time) coupled with a love of studying the scriptures, so I now read the Talmud in the original Hebrew to gain added insights into these scriptural passages. This blog serves as a place to document this personal journey.

For the record, I don't consider myself an expert in Biblical Hebrew. Just the opposite is true. I’m very much a novice, but hopefully my meager beginnings might inspire others, including my children in their later years, to make the attempt to learn Biblical Hebrew as a means of deepening their understanding of scriptural teachings.

Being a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what I blog will naturally be influenced by my own religious background. At the same time, the personal views and thoughts that I record here obviously don't represent official teachings or doctrine of the Church. In my blog I’ll often reference the Standard Works of the LDS Church – the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price – but these references aren’t intended to present my ideas as official doctrine. Instead my purpose will be to present examples of Semitic language grammar, figures of speech, and vocabulary that exist throughout all these books of scripture.