Yom

Last updated

Yom (Hebrew : יום) is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The word means day in both Modern and Biblical Hebrew.

Contents

Overview

Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word yom can be used in different ways to refer to different time spans:


Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary, with fewer words compared to other languages, such as English or Spanish. [1] [lower-alpha 1] This means words often have multiple meanings determined by context. [9] Strong's Lexicon yom is Hebrew #3117 יוֹם [10] The word Yom's root meaning is to be hot as the warm hours of a day.

Thus "yom", in its context, is sometimes translated as: "time" (Gen 4:3, Is. 30:8); "year" (I Kings 1:1, 2 Chronicles 21:19, Amos 4:4); "age" (Gen 18:11, 24:1 and 47:28; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2); "always" (Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24 and 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7); "season" (Genesis 40:4, Joshua 24:7, 2 Chronicles 15:3); epoch or 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31) – see "Creationism", below.

Yom relates to the concept of time. Yom is not just for day, days, but for time in general. How yom is translated depends on the context of its use with other words in the sentence around it, using hermeneutics. [11]

The word day is used somewhat the same way in the English language, examples: "In my grandfather's day, cars did not go very fast" or "In the day of the dinosaurs there were not many mammals."

The word Yom is used in the name of various Jewish feast days; as, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; Yom teruah (lit., day of shouting) the Feast of Trumpets (i.e. Rosh Hashannah).

Yom is also used in each of the days of the week in the Hebrew calendar.

See also

Creationism
Geology

Notes

  1. Biblical Hebrew has a very small number of words, about 8,000, and around 1,700 of those words are hapax legomena in the Hebrew Bible. Modern Hebrew has about 100,000 words. [2] [3] For comparison modern English has over 450,000 words, [4] [5] and Spanish has just over 175,000 words. Standard English dictionaries typically have about 200,000 words, [6] whereas Spanish dictionaries have about 80,000 words. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish holidays</span> Holidays celebrated in Judaism

Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or Yamim Tovim, are holidays observed by Jews throughout the Hebrew calendar. They include religious, cultural and national elements, derived from three sources: biblical mitzvot ("commandments"), rabbinic mandates, and the history of Judaism and the State of Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yom Kippur</span> Holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, corresponding to a date in late September or early October.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuesday</span> Day of the week

Tuesday is the day of the week between Monday and Wednesday. According to international standard ISO 8601, Monday is the first day of the week; thus, Tuesday is the second day of the week. According to many traditional calendars, however, Sunday is the first day of the week, so Tuesday is the third day of the week. In some Muslim countries, Saturday is the first day of the week and thus Tuesday is the fourth day of the week.

<i>Goy</i> Word meaning non-Jew

In modern Hebrew and Yiddish goy is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews, it is a term for the ethnic out-group.

Kol Nidre is a Hebrew and Aramaic declaration which is recited in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on the night of Yom Kippur. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer, even though it is commonly spoken of as if it were a prayer. This declaration and its ceremonial accompaniment have been charged with emotional undertones since the medieval period, creating a dramatic introduction to Yom Kippur on what is often dubbed "Kol Nidrei night", with the entire Yom Kippur evening service popularly called Kol Nidrei.

<i>Shalom</i> Hebrew word and greeting

Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace and can be used idiomatically to mean hello.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Day-age creationism</span> Metaphorical interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis.

Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not literal 24-hour days, but are much longer periods. The Genesis account is then reconciled with the age of the Earth. Proponents of the day-age theory can be found among both theistic evolutionists, who accept the scientific consensus on evolution, and progressive creationists, who reject it. The theories are said to be built on the understanding that the Hebrew word yom is also used to refer to a time period, with a beginning and an end and not necessarily that of a 24-hour day.

Many languages have words expressing indefinite and fictitious numbers—inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. One technical term for such words is "non-numerical vague quantifier". Such words designed to indicate large quantities can be called "indefinite hyperbolic numerals".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High Holy Days</span> Colloquialism for Jewish New Year holiday, 10 Days of Awe, Repentance and Atonement

In Judaism, the High Holy Days, also known as High Holidays or Days of Awe consist of:

  1. strictly, the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur ;
  2. by extension, the period of ten days including those holidays, known also as the Ten Days of Repentance ; or,
  3. by a further extension, the entire 40-day penitential period in the Jewish year from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur, traditionally taken to represent the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai before coming down with the second ("replacement") set of the Tablets of Stone.
<i>Mincha</i> An afternoon prayer service in Judaism.

Mincha is the afternoon prayer service in Judaism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercy seat</span> Gold lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant

According to the Hebrew Bible, the kaporet or mercy seat was the gold lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant, with two cherubim at the ends to cover and create the space in which Yahweh appeared and dwelled. This was connected with the rituals of the Day of Atonement. The term also appears in later Jewish sources, and twice in the New Testament, from where it has significance in Christian theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ta'anit</span> Fasting in Judaism

A ta'anit or ta'anis is a fast in Judaism in which one abstains from all food and drink, including water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acharei Mot</span> Portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading

Acharei Mot is the 29th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It is the sixth weekly portion in the Book of Leviticus, containing Leviticus 16:1–18:30. It is named after the fifth and sixth Hebrew words of the parashah, its first distinctive words.

UntannehTokef, Unthanneh Toqeph, Un'taneh Tokef, or Unsanneh Tokef is a piyyut that has been a part of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy in some traditions of rabbinical Judaism for centuries. It introduces the Kedusha of Musaf for these days. It is chanted while the Torah ark is open and the congregants are standing. It is the "central poem of the High Holy Day [of the Day of Atonement]." The ArtScroll machzor calls it "one of the most stirring compositions in the entire liturgy of the Days of Awe."

K-P-R is a Semitic root, in Arabic and Hebrew rendered as K-F-R . The basic meaning of the root is "to cover", but it is used in the sense "to conceal" and hence "to deny", and its notability derives from its use for religious heresy or apostasy in both Islam and Judaism.

This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosh Hashanah</span> Jewish New Year

Rosh HaShanah is the Jewish New Year. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah. It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25, that occur in the late summer/early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah begins a ten-day period of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur, as well as beginning the cycle of autumnal religious festivals running through Sukkot and ending in Shemini Atzeret in Israel and in Simchat Torah everywhere else.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy</span> One of the Ten Commandments

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" is one of the Ten Commandments found in the Torah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scapegoat</span> Animal which is ritually burdened

In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

Yom rendered as day in English translations from the Hebrew (יום) and Arabic (يوم)

References

  1. A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period, page 10, By William M. Schniedewind
  2. Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics, By Moisés Silva
  3. Passport Israel 3rd Ed., page 12, By Donna Rosenthal
  4. Ling, Johnny (2001). Elert, Glenn (ed.). "Number of words in the English language". The Physics Factbook. Retrieved 2019-07-28.
  5. Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, page 5a, edited by Philip Babcock Gove, Merriam-Webster, Inc
  6. oxforddictionaries.com, How many words are there in the English language?
  7. Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary
  8. Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary, byMerriam-Webster, 80,000 entries
  9. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, page 48, By Bruce K. Waltke, Michael Patrick O'Connor
  10. Strong's Hebrew Lexicon, yom, #3117.
  11. The Hebrew Word “Yom” Used with a Number in Genesis 1, What does “yom” mean in Genesis 1?, by Rodney Whitefield, Ph.D. 12 June 2006

Further reading