StrongerBible

ummah

אֻמָּה

HebrewH0523“peoples, tribes, ...”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 25:16Num 25:15Psa 44:14(15)Psa 57:9(10)Psa 108:3(4)Psa 117:1Psa 149:7
Root family
Word studyoom-MAHnoun

What ummah means

a people group held together by common descent: a clan-sized branch of one family, or a whole people among the peoples of the world

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is a rare word for a body of people who belong together by birth. It turns up only seven times, and what changes from place to place is not the idea but the scale of the group in view: twice it names the clan-sized branches of a single family, and five times, all in the Psalms, it names the peoples of the world.

The two narrative uses are both about family branches. Ishmael's twelve sons each stand at the head of one such group (Genesis 25:16), and Cozbi's father Zur was head of one in Midian (Numbers 25:15). In both places the group sits inside something larger, close to what Hebrew elsewhere calls a clan (מִשְׁפָּחָה).

In the Psalms the word always falls in the second half of a matched pair of lines, echoing the word that opened the pair:

  • it answers "the nations" (גּוֹי) in Psalm 44:14 and Psalm 149:7
  • it answers "the peoples" (עַם) in Psalm 57:9 and Psalm 108:3
  • it stands beside "all nations" in the worldwide call to praise in Psalm 117:1

What holds the small use and the large use together is descent rather than borders or government. A group counts here because its members trace themselves back to the same ancestors, whether that group is one branch of Ishmael's family or the whole population of a foreign land.

Nuances

1aa clan: one branch of a family or people, headed by its own chief
Gen 25:16Num 25:15
1bthe peoples: the populations of the world, set alongside the nations in poetry
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 44:14(15)Psa 57:9(10)Psa 108:3(4)Psa 117:1Psa 149:7

What scholars say about ummah

BDB and HALOT gloss אֻמָּה as "tribe, people," a noun of uncertain derivation with cognates in Akkadian ummatu ("family, clan, main body") and Arabic ʾumma ("community, people"); the occasionally proposed link with אֵם, "mother," is speculative and is not adopted by the standard lexica. Hebrew attestation is limited: the feminine plural אֻמּוֹת at Numbers 25:15 and the plural with pronominal suffix at Genesis 25:16, both of tribal subdivisions, plus the masculine plural אֻמִּים in five Psalms, where the word stands in parallelism with גּוֹיִם and עַמִּים. In four of those five (Psalms 44:14; 57:9; 108:3; 149:7) the Masoretic text writes בַּל־אֻמִּים; the lexica note that read as one word (בַּלְאֻמִּים) the form is the plural of לְאֹם, and the sense of the colon is unaffected either way. Psalm 117:1, with the article (הָאֻמִּים), is unambiguous, and the Septuagint's λαοί there is carried into Romans 15:11. The Aramaic cognate אֻמָּה is far better attested, in the royal address formula of Daniel and at Ezra 4:10. Semantically the word belongs to the shared Hebrew vocabulary for population groups surveyed in TDOT s.v. גּוֹי, within which descent rather than territory or polity is the organizing notion.

Where scholars disagree about ummah

Whether the masculine plural form in Psalms 44:14, 57:9, 108:3 and 149:7 belongs to this word at all: the Masoretic text writes it as two words, "bal" and "ummim," and the same letters can be divided instead as one word, the plural of the poetic term for peoples, לְאֹם.

  • majorityThe Masoretic word division is kept, so all four are plural forms of this word, alongside the unambiguous form with the article at Psalm 117:1.; BDB, s.v. אֻמָּה; HALOT, s.v. אֻמָּה
  • minorityThe two words are read as one, בַּלְאֻמִּים, making the form the plural of לְאֹם; the sense of the line, "among the peoples," is unchanged.; BDB, s.v. אֻמָּה (noting the equivalence with the undivided form); HALOT, s.v. לְאֹם

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. אֻמָּהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. אֻמָּהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. אֻמָּהlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. גּוֹיtheological-dictionary

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

All attested forms of אֻמָּה

m p absolute

אֻמִּים

Psa 44:14, Psa 57:9, Psa 108:3, Psa 117:1, Psa 149:7

f p absolute

אֻמּוֹת

Num 25:15

f p construct

אֻמֹּתָם

Gen 25:16