StrongerBible

adam

אָדָם

HebrewH0120“man, mankind, ...”

Appears 551 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 1:26Gen 1:27Gen 2:5Gen 2:7 (2×)Gen 2:8Gen 2:15Gen 2:16Gen 2:18Gen 2:19 (2×)Gen 2:20Jdg 16:13Pro 6:12
Word studyResearch-gradeah-DAHMnoun

What adam means

humankind: the human being as a creature of the ground, used both for people as a whole and for any single person

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This is the Bible's basic word for a human, and it names the species before it ever names a man. It works first as a collective, like the English word "humanity" or the older sense of "man," naming people as a kind rather than one named individual. It has no plural and no female form: it covers male and female together as one creature. From there it narrows easily to any single person, whoever they are, and only late and unevenly does it harden into the personal name of the first human, Adam.

The word is tied to the ground. In the creation account the human (adam) is shaped from the dust of the ground (adamah), and the two words sound almost the same on purpose. Most scholars treat that link as a deliberate play on words rather than the word's actual origin, but the effect is the same either way: this is the earthbound, mortal creature, made by God and answerable to God, set apart from the animals yet never confused with God. The keynote the word strikes is creatureliness, not divinity.

Because it covers so much, the word leans on context. In legal and ritual texts it simply means a person, anyone at all. In the wisdom and poetry books it often carries the weight of human frailty and limits over against God, and Ecclesiastes returns to it again and again as the word for the mortal who shares the fate of the beasts. And as a form of address to the prophet Ezekiel, "son of man" simply means "mortal" or "human one," underlining the prophet's smallness before the God who speaks to him.

Nuances

1ahumankind as a whole: people collectively, the human race
Gen 1:26Gen 1:27Gen 6:1Gen 6:2Gen 6:4Gen 6:5Gen 6:6Gen 6:7Gen 7:21Gen 9:6Psa 90:3Jer 31:27
1ba human being: any single person, anyone at all
Gen 2:5Gen 2:7 (2×)Gen 2:8Gen 2:15Gen 2:16Gen 2:18Lev 13:9Lev 24:17Num 19:11Num 19:13Num 19:14Pro 6:12
1cthe human creature in weakness and mortality, set over against God
Gen 6:3Exo 33:20Num 23:19Deu 5:241Sa 15:29Job 25:6Psa 8:4Psa 144:3Psa 146:3Ecc 3:18Ecc 3:19Isa 51:12
1dAdam, the personal name of the first human
Gen 5:1Gen 5:2
1e"son of man": a way of addressing a person as a mortal, used of the prophet Ezekiel
Ezk 2:1Ezk 2:3Ezk 2:6Ezk 2:8Ezk 3:1Ezk 3:3Ezk 3:4Ezk 3:10Ezk 3:17Ezk 3:25Ezk 4:1Ezk 33:7

What scholars say about adam

The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, Clines's DCH) and the major theological dictionaries (Westermann in TLOT, Maass in TDOT I, Hamilton in NIDOTTE) converge on a single polysemous noun whose primary register is collective and creaturely: it names the human species (Gen 1:27; 5:1), narrows to an individual human, and only late stabilizes as the proper name Adam, which BDB restricts to a handful of verses (Gen 4:25; 5:1, 3-5; 1 Chr 1:1). Two morphological facts reinforce the collective sense: the noun has no plural or dual (Gesenius GKC 123b uses it as the textbook collective), and it stands in the construct only once (Prov 6:12). The famous link with adamah (ground) in Gen 2:7 is now widely read as theological wordplay rather than true etymology (Gunkel, Skinner, Westermann, Wenham, Hamilton, Sarna); Ugaritic adm "humanity," attested in El's epithet ab adm "father of mankind" (KTU 1.14; Rahmouni, Divine Epithets), shows the word was a stable Northwest Semitic primary noun before the Yahwist exploited its sound. The vocative ben-adam in Ezekiel (93 of its occurrences) is read as marking the prophet's creatureliness over against the divine glory (Zimmerli, Greenberg, Block). On the imago Dei texts (Gen 1:26-27; 9:6) the dominant reading is functional and representative rather than substantive (Middleton, Bird, Garr, Walton). James Barr's The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality argues the creature is mortal from the start, with Genesis 2-3 about a lost chance at immortality rather than the origin of death (so too Levenson), which Qoheleth elaborates in its relentless adam-as-mortal theme.

Where scholars disagree about adam

Whether the first human in Genesis 2 is male from the start or a sexually undifferentiated "earth creature" until the woman is formed in Genesis 2:21-23.

  • contestedMale by default throughout, since the term takes masculine grammatical agreement, a single male body is operated on, and the man speaks of the woman as taken "from man."; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (WBC); V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1-17 (NICOT)
  • contestedAn undifferentiated earth creature, with male and female emerging together only at the dividing of its side, so that "man" and "woman" appear simultaneously.; P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress, 1978); C. Meyers, Discovering Eve (Oxford, 1988)
  • contestedA mediating reading: the figure is humankind as such (corporate and generic) rather than a single male, without the metaphysical androgyne.; C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11 (Continental Commentary)

What God's repeated address to Ezekiel as "son of man" is meant to convey.

  • majorityIt marks the prophet's creatureliness, the gap between the mortal addressee and the divine glory that has just appeared.; W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia); M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (Anchor Bible)
  • minorityIt combines creatureliness with a representative role: the prophet stands as the human party in covenant dialogue with God, and the phrase also sets him apart from the heavenly beings of his visions.; D. I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT)

Whether the first "adam" is a historical individual, a representative chosen from an existing population, or a literary personification of humanity.

  • contestedA historical originating individual (and couple).; C. J. Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? (Crossway, 2011)
  • contestedA real but archetypal figure, chosen from an extant human population as a priestly representative.; J. H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve (IVP, 2015)
  • contestedA literary personification of humanity as such rather than a biological ancestor.; C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11 (Continental Commentary); P. Enns, The Evolution of Adam (Brazos, 2012)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. אָדָםlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. אָדָם, pp. 9-10lexicon
  • C. Westermann, "אָדָם adam humankind," in TLOT 1:31-42theological-dictionary
  • F. Maass, "אָדָם adam," in TDOT 1:75-87theological-dictionary
  • V. P. Hamilton, "אָדָם," in NIDOTTEtheological-dictionary
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew 1:123-29, s.v. אָדָםlexicon
  • C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (Continental Commentary), pp. 201-202commentary
  • G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (WBC), pp. 59-60commentary
  • W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia)commentary
  • D. I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT)commentary
  • P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress, 1978)monograph
  • R. S. Hess, "Splitting the Adam," VTSup 41 (1990): 1-15article
  • J. Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (Fortress, 1992)monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of אָדָם

m s absolute

אָדָם

Gen 1:26, Gen 1:27, Gen 2:5, Gen 2:7, Gen 2:7, Gen 2:8, Gen 2:15, Gen 2:16

c s absolute

אָדָם

Jdg 16:13

m s construct

אָדָם

Pro 6:12