StrongerBible

tsamid

צָמִיד

HebrewH6781bracelet

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 24:22Gen 24:30Gen 24:47Num 19:15Num 31:50Ezk 16:11Ezk 23:42
Root family
Word studytsah-MEEDnoun

What tsamid means

something clamped tightly onto another thing: most often a bracelet closed around the arm, once a cover bound down over a jar.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The word does not describe a shape, it describes a grip. It is built from a root about binding two things together so they hold, the same root that gives Hebrew its word for a pair of oxen yoked side by side. Whatever this word names, it names because it is fastened on and stays on.

Six of its seven appearances are jewelry, and always the same piece: a band of gold closed around a woman's wrist or forearm. This is not costume jewelry. Abraham's servant hands Rebekah a pair weighing ten shekels of gold, and Ezekiel twice uses the picture of someone slipping these onto a woman's arms as shorthand for lavish, almost overwhelming, generosity. In Numbers 31:50 the same bands are counted among captured gold and handed over as an offering.

The seventh appearance sits in a completely different world. Numbers 19:15 rules that an open jar with nothing bound over its mouth is unclean, and the word for what should have been bound there is this one. English has to switch words, so the connection is invisible in translation, but the Hebrew is doing the same thing both times: naming what is clamped shut around something.

That is why the two uses can sit under one word. A bracelet is a band closed around an arm. A cover of this kind is a band closed around a jar's mouth. In both, what matters is that it is bound on, not that it decorates or that it hides.

Nuances

1aa bracelet: a band of metal closed around the wrist or forearm, worn as jewelry and valuable enough to count as a gift or an offering.
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 24:22Gen 24:30Gen 24:47Num 31:50Ezk 16:11Ezk 23:42
1ba cover bound down: what is fastened tightly over the mouth of a jar to seal it shut.
Num 19:15

What scholars say about tsamid

The standard lexica derive צָמִיד from the root צמד, "to bind, join, attach," the same root behind צֶמֶד, a yoked pair (BDB, HALOT, DCH). BDB files both attested senses under a single headword, "bracelet, armlet" for the six ornamental occurrences and "covering" for Numbers 19:15; the STEPBible lexicon underlying this corpus instead lists them as two sub-entries. The ornamental sense is uncontroversial and is corroborated by the inventory of Numbers 31:50, where the word stands in a list of gold ornaments alongside אֶצְעָדָה, טַבַּעַת, עָגִיל and כּוּמָז, and by the adornment imagery of Ezekiel 16:11 and 23:42. Discussion concentrates on the phrase צָמִיד פָּתִיל in Numbers 19:15, rendered either as a covering bound on with a cord (so BDB, taking צָמִיד as the noun for the cover) or as a fixed expression for a vessel sealed tight, the sense the phrase carries as a technical term in later Mishnaic usage; the critical commentaries on Numbers 19 (Milgrom, Levine) treat the clause in connection with the transmission of corpse impurity to open vessels. Nothing in the discussion disturbs the semantic core, which every treatment locates in the idea of binding fast.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. צָמִידlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. צָמִידlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. צָמִידlexicon
  • Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, JPS Torah Commentary (1990), on Numbers 19commentary
  • Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20, Anchor Bible 4 (1993), on Numbers 19commentary

All attested forms of צָמִיד

m p absolute

צְמִידִים, צְּמִדִים, צְּמִידִים

Gen 24:22, Ezk 16:11, Ezk 23:42, Gen 24:30, Gen 24:47

m s absolute

צָמִיד

Num 31:50

m s construct

צָמִיד

Num 19:15