dependable: proven trustworthy, used both of the quality itself and of the people who have it
This word describes someone who can be counted on. It belongs to a family of Hebrew words built on the picture of firmness, the same family as the verb אָמַן, which means to be steady and reliable. The point is not warmth or good intentions but tested dependability: this is the person whose word holds.
Most of the time it points at people. Two psalms use it on its own for a whole group, the dependable people, mourning how few of them are left and celebrating that God guards them. Proverbs uses it to mark out someone reliable in a particular job:
- a messenger who actually delivers what he was sent with
- a witness who will not shade the truth to protect himself
- a man of steady loyalty, whom the writer says is hard to find
Twice the word names the quality rather than the person. Moses says of a wayward generation that there is no dependability in them, and Isaiah pictures a nation walking through the gates because it has kept faith. The related noun אֱמוּנָה carries that abstract idea far more often, while this word usually stays close to the people who show it.