a time: a single instance of something happening, counted out and often added up
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is by far the most common use of the word. It marks one occurrence in a series you can count: this time, the third time, seven times, once, twice. From there it naturally builds the idioms for counting events, whether a feast kept three times a year or a blow struck a fixed number of times.
The same word can lean toward emphasis as much as arithmetic. "This time" can simply note that something has now finally happened, as when Adam first sees the woman, or when Jacob says he will die content now that he has seen Joseph again. The shift is one of feeling, not of separate meaning: a single moment singled out from the rest.
It also stretches to "the time has come" in a more charged sense, naming a decisive moment that has at last arrived. The arithmetic of counting and the weight of a singled-out moment are two shades of one idea, so they sit together as one meaning rather than splitting apart.
Nuances
1aa counted instance, paired with a number: so many times, once, twice
1cthe decisive moment that has arrived: the time has now come
Isa 66:8Jer 10:18Jer 16:21
2
a foot, or the step a foot makes: the tread of a person walking, often used of the path one's life takes
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The word also names the foot itself, or more often the footstep, the print or tread a foot leaves as someone walks. The same striking motion that lets the word count repeated blows lies behind it: a footfall is the foot striking the ground.
In poetry this becomes a favorite image for the course of a person's life. To have one's steps held firm, or made to slip, or caught in a snare, is to have one's whole way through life steadied or endangered. The footstep stands in for the journey.
A few places use it plainly of physical feet, as when the beloved's feet are admired in their sandals, or the hoofbeats of horses are heard approaching. Whether literal tread or the figurative path of a life, this is one concrete meaning, clearly different from counting times.
Nuances
2athe footstep or tread, often standing for the course of one's life
a pedestal-foot: one of the cast metal corner-feet that the ark and other holy furniture rested on
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In the instructions for building the sacred tent, the word names the four cast metal feet at the corners of the ark, and the supports of the bronze stands for the basins. These are the "feet" a piece of furniture stands on, the same way a table or a chest has feet.
This is a narrow, technical use tied to the furnishings of worship, and it shows up only in those building texts. It clearly grows out of the idea of a foot, but it has settled into its own fixed sense for the metal supports of an object, so it is gathered here separately.
carries the picture of a footfall and often stands for the course of a person's life, the way being kept firm or made to slipPsa 17:5Psa 119:133
Both
both name the tread a foot makes in walkingSng 7:1
Only step
the English "step" can mean a stair or a measured pace or a phase in a process, senses this word does not carry
“once”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“foot”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How pa'am differs from similar Hebrew words
עֵתthe right or appointed time, a season or period when something is fitting, rather than a counted instance of a repeated event
רֶגֶלthe ordinary word for the physical foot as a body part and for going on foot, where this word leans toward the footstep, the tread, or the path a life takes
Its commonest use has nothing to do with walking at all: it counts how often something happens, giving "twice", "seven times", "three times a year".Gen 27:36Jos 6:4Exo 34:23
It also singles out one occasion, whether an ordinary "this time" or a charged announcement that the moment has now arrived.Gen 2:23Gen 29:35Isa 66:8
It can mean the physical foot itself, or the sound a foot makes striking the ground, such as the hoofbeats of a chariot team.Sng 7:1Jdg 5:28
It even names a solid object: the cast metal corner-feet that the ark and the bronze stands rested on.Exo 25:121Ki 7:30
Both
Both name the stepping a person actually does rather than the road walked on, which is why a psalm can set them side by side in one plea as two pictures of the same walk.Psa 17:5
In that overlap both are used for a life that can be steadied or can give way, so each is something God is asked to hold firm and each is said to slip.Psa 17:5
It has only this one job. All nine of its appearances are poetry about a person's walking standing for the direction a life is taking, with none of the other word's counting, body-part, or furniture uses.Psa 37:31Psa 73:2Pro 14:15
It is the word reached for when stepping is measured against a marked road, so the question is whether a person is holding to the way or turning aside from it.Psa 44:18Job 31:7Job 23:11
Most of its uses have nothing to do with the body at all: it counts how many times something happens, and is rendered "once", "twice", or "seven times".Gen 41:32Exo 23:17Lev 4:6Jos 6:3Num 14:22
Marks a decisive moment that has finally arrived, the sense behind "this time" and "now at last".Isa 66:8Jer 10:18
Names the tread itself, the foot as it strikes the ground in walking, so it fits a body in motion rather than what the body leaves behind.Isa 26:6Jdg 5:28
Is used of objects, not just living bodies: the cast metal corner-feet that the ark and the bronze stands rested on.Exo 25:12Exo 37:31Ki 7:30
Both
Both name something narrower than the whole foot or leg, and both can be used plainly of a real foot in a scene rather than as a figure of speech.Gen 25:26Sng 7:1
Both stand for the course a person's life is taking, the path being walked while God or an enemy watches it.Psa 56:6Psa 89:51Psa 17:5Psa 119:133
Both appear in trap imagery, where a snare or a net is set for the part of the body that is about to come down on it.Job 18:9Pro 29:5
Names one specific part of the foot, the hard back of it, and so it is the word for the body's low, exposed point that gets seized, bitten, or caught. The other word never picks out that part.Gen 3:15Gen 25:26Gen 49:17Job 18:9
Means the mark a foot leaves behind, a visible trail that someone else can follow or that stays hidden. This is the trace on the ground, not the act of walking.Sng 1:8Psa 77:19
Carries a gesture of contempt when a trusted friend raises it against someone, and a note of shame when a conquered city is pictured through it.Psa 41:9Jer 13:22
Stretches from the body to a fighting force, naming the rear that trails behind the main body of troops.Gen 49:19Jos 8:13
Its main job is counting. Paired with a number it tells how many times something happened, which is why English Bibles usually render it "time" or "times". This is the one thing the other word never does.Jos 6:4Exo 34:23Num 14:22Gen 27:36
It singles out one occasion in ordinary speech: "this time", "only this once", "just once more". The other word never marks an occasion, only a movement of the leg.Gen 2:23Gen 18:32Jdg 6:39Jdg 16:28
It can announce that the decisive moment has arrived, the point at which something long expected finally happens.Isa 66:8Jer 16:21Jer 10:18
It can name the foot itself rather than the movement: a woman's feet in sandals, the beat of horses' hooves, even the cast metal corner-feet that the ark and the bronze stands rested on. The other word is only ever the step taken, never a foot you could touch.Sng 7:1Jdg 5:28Exo 25:121Ki 7:30
Both
Both can name the footfalls a walker actually makes, and both use those footfalls for the whole course a life is taking, which is why each turns up in prayers and proverbs about staying on the right path.Psa 119:133Psa 17:5Pro 16:9Jer 10:23
Both are used of steps that hostile people target, with a walker's footing hunted, netted, or tripped up so that he cannot go where he means to go.Psa 140:4Psa 57:6Lam 4:18
It measures one reach of the leg as an actual length of ground, so steps can be counted off as a distance travelled.2Sa 6:13
It pictures how wide or how cramped a person's walk is, and that width stands for how free or how hemmed in their life has become: room made under the feet, a walk with nothing to trip it, or a stride pulled up short.2Sa 22:37Psa 18:36Job 18:7Pro 4:12Pro 30:29
It treats a person's steps as a record that someone else numbers and inspects, so that a whole life can be audited step by step.Job 14:16Job 31:4Job 34:21Job 31:37
Counts how many separate occasions an action happens, standing next to whatever number the writer needs: three, seven, ten.Lev 4:6Jos 6:4Num 24:10
Can single out one occasion and set it against the others, giving the sense of "this time" or "just this once".Gen 2:23Gen 18:32Gen 27:36
Sets the recurring rhythm of the calendar, saying how often in the year a duty comes around.Exo 23:17Deu 16:161Ki 9:25
Reaches well beyond counting altogether: it also names a foot, the tread it makes, and the cast metal feet that holy furniture rested on.Sng 7:1Psa 17:5Exo 25:12
Both
English Bibles render both with the same phrase, "seven times", so a reader in translation cannot tell which of the two words is on the page.Jos 6:4Psa 12:6
Both lean on seven as the Bible's number for something brought to completion: a rite is finished when the sprinkling reaches seven, and a payback is total when it reaches sevenfold.Lev 16:14Gen 4:15
Measures how much is handed back rather than how often anything happens: a wrong repaid to its absolute limit.Gen 4:15Psa 79:12Pro 6:31
Can raise something good to its fullest degree, where no repeated action is in view at all: silver at complete purity, daylight at full strength.Psa 12:6Isa 30:26
Is locked to the number seven and takes no number of its own, so anyone who wants to say more has to build a bigger phrase on top of it, as Lamech does when he boasts of seventy-sevenfold.Gen 4:24
pa'am in the other biblical languages
καιρόςGreek“time/right time”the Greek for a decisive or appointed moment, close to this word's "the time has come" sense but without its plain counting use
πούςGreek“foot”the ordinary Greek word for the foot, overlapping this word's foot and footstep sense but not its counting sense
Names a physical foot or footfall, the tread of a person walking, a concrete meaning the Greek word never has.Sng 7:1Psa 85:13Psa 17:5
Works as a countable "time" or "occurrence" that takes numbers and builds idioms: "this time," "two times," "seven times," "these ten times." It is a noun you can number and stack up, not only an adverb.Gen 2:23Gen 27:36Jos 6:4Num 14:22
Both
Both can mark a single occurrence of an action, "once" or "one time." In the Greek Old Testament ἅπαξ is the word regularly chosen to render פַּעַם where it counts one time, and the New Testament keeps this plain everyday use.Jos 6:112Co 11:25
Carries the weight of "once for all": a single act so complete it is never repeated, the sense the New Testament gives to Christ's death and to the faith handed down to the church.Heb 9:26Heb 9:281Pe 3:18Jud 1:3
Marks how often an event recurs, such as the one yearly entry into the Most Holy Place, a repeating rhythm the New Testament then sets against an offering made "once" and never again.Heb 9:7
It is a noun, a single occasion or stroke, so it can be counted exactly: once, twice, three times, seven times, ten times. The number sits next to it and does the counting.Jos 6:42Ki 5:10Job 19:3Job 33:29
Because it names one occasion, it can point at the present one and mark it off from all the others: "this time", the moment that is finally different.Gen 2:23Gen 29:35Jdg 16:28
Put a large number with it and it multiplies rather than repeats, so it becomes a way of asking for increase: a hundred times as many, a thousand times as many.Deu 1:112Sa 24:3
It keeps concrete physical meanings that the Greek adverb has none of, all of them variations on a footfall: a foot, a person's steps, the beat of chariot hoofs, even the four feet a piece of furniture stands on.Psa 17:52Ki 19:24Jdg 5:28Exo 25:12
Both
Hebrew has no single word for "often", so it builds the idea out of two: the noun for an occasion in the plural with "many" beside it. That is why one Bible reads "many times" in the Old Testament and "often" in the New, for what is the same thought.Ecc 7:22Psa 106:43Php 3:182Co 8:22
Both make the repetition itself the point of the sentence. It is not incidental that the thing happened again; the piling up is what the writer wants the reader to feel.Psa 106:43Heb 10:11
Both can total up someone's repeated behavior so that the count becomes the charge against them, whether a people testing God or a man persecuting believers.Num 14:22Jdg 16:15Act 26:11
It is only an adverb of frequency. It says "often" and stops there: it never names a particular occasion, and it never tells you how many times, so a reader is left with a pattern rather than a tally.Jhn 18:2Rom 1:132Co 11:26
The letter to the Hebrews turns the word into an argument: what has to be done again and again is by that very fact unfinished, so the priests who keep repeating the same offerings are set against a sacrifice made once for all.Heb 9:25Heb 9:26Heb 10:11
It describes a standing pattern in someone's life rather than a series of incidents anyone counted: an affliction that keeps coming back, a restraint tried over and over, a kindness repeatedly shown.Mat 17:15Mrk 5:42Ti 1:16
What scholars say about pa'am
Standard lexica agree on a single noun with a striking or beating core that fans out into the counting sense (a time, an instance), the foot and footstep sense, and the technical pedestal-feet of the tabernacle furniture. HALOT and BDB list these together under one entry; TDOT and the theological dictionaries treat the "time" usage and the "footstep" usage as the two principal domains.