StrongerBible

pitom

פִּתְאֹם

HebrewH6597“suddenly, unawares, ...”

Appears 25 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Num 6:9Num 12:4Jos 10:9Jos 11:72Ch 29:36Job 5:3Job 9:23Job 22:10Psa 64:4(5)Psa 64:7(8)Pro 3:25Pro 6:15Pro 7:22
Root family
Word studypit-OMEadverb

What pitom means

suddenly: happening all at once and without warning, catching people unprepared

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word describes something that happens all at once and without warning, the way a trap springs or a wall gives way. It fuses two ideas English usually keeps apart: speed (it is over in a moment) and surprise (no one saw it coming). Older translations reach for "suddenly" or "unawares."

In the Hebrew Bible it is overwhelmingly a word of doom. Again and again it marks disaster crashing down on people who felt safe:

  • a wicked man's ruin arrives suddenly, past all cure (Proverbs 6:15)
  • the destroyer sweeps down on the city suddenly at noon (Jeremiah 15:8)
  • Babylon falls suddenly and is shattered (Jeremiah 51:8)

The victims are typically caught off guard, so the horror lies as much in the shock as in the speed.

A handful of uses are not disasters. God speaks "suddenly" to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam (Numbers 12:4); Joshua falls on his enemies suddenly after an all-night march (Joshua 10:9); Hezekiah's reform comes together suddenly (2 Chronicles 29:36); and the Lord will "suddenly" come to his temple (Malachi 3:1). Even here the note of the unexpected stays: the point is that no one is braced for it.

For extra force the word is sometimes doubled with a close relative, the noun פֶּתַע ("an instant, a startling moment"), in the phrase rendered "in an instant, suddenly" (Numbers 6:9; Isaiah 29:5).

Num 6:9Num 12:4Jos 10:9Jos 11:72Ch 29:36Job 5:3Job 9:23Job 22:10Psa 64:4(5)Psa 64:7(8)Pro 3:25Pro 6:15

What scholars say about pitom

The adverb is universally glossed "suddenly, unexpectedly" (HALOT, BDB, DCH). It is best taken as a noun-derived adverbial form connected to פֶּתַע (petaʿ), "an instant, a moment," from the root meaning to open (the eye), hence the notion of something happening in the blink of an eye. Both distinctive features noted by the lexica are borne out by usage: the temporal (an action completed in a moment) and the psychological (the surprise of the unprepared). A widely observed pattern, discussed in TDOT, is that פִּתְאֹם is heavily weighted toward contexts of sudden calamity and divine judgment (Job, Proverbs, and especially the prophetic doom oracles of Isaiah and Jeremiah), such that many treat an ominous coloring as characteristic, though it remains contextual rather than a separate lexical sense. For emphasis it forms a near-synonymous doublet with פֶּתַע in the merism לְפֶתַע פִּתְאֹם (Isaiah 29:5; cf. בְּפֶתַע פִּתְאֹם, Numbers 6:9). The Septuagint most often renders it ἐξαίφνης / ἐξάπινα, and its semantic range overlaps the New Testament's language of the sudden, unlooked-for day (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. פִּתְאֹםlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. פִּתְאֹםlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. פִּתְאֹםlexicon
  • Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), s.v. פֶּתַעtheological-dictionary

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

All attested forms of פִּתְאֹם

adv

פִּתְאֹם, פִּתְאוֹם

Num 6:9, Num 12:4, Jos 10:9, Jos 11:7, 2Ch 29:36, Job 5:3, Job 9:23, Job 22:10