StrongerBible

shamayim

שָׁמַיִם

HebrewH8064“heaven, sky, ...”

Appears 421 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 1:1Gen 1:8Gen 1:9Gen 1:14Gen 1:15Gen 1:17Gen 1:20Gen 1:26Gen 1:28Gen 1:30Gen 2:1Gen 2:4 (2×)Gen 2:19Gen 2:20Gen 6:7Gen 6:17Gen 7:3Gen 7:19Gen 8:2 (2×)Gen 9:2Gen 14:19Gen 14:22Gen 15:5Gen 19:24Gen 22:15Gen 28:12Gen 28:17Gen 49:25Exo 9:8Exo 9:10Exo 10:22Lev 26:19Deu 4:19Deu 10:14Deu 28:23Deu 30:12Deu 32:40Deu 33:13Deu 33:26Deu 33:28Jos 8:20Jdg 5:4Jdg 5:20Jdg 13:20Jdg 20:402Sa 22:102Sa 22:141Ki 8:271Ki 8:351Ch 16:26
Word studyResearch-gradeshah-MAH-yimnoun

What shamayim means

the whole realm above the earth: the sky you can see and, beyond it, the place where God dwells

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Hebrew has one word for everything overhead, and it stretches a long way. It covers the open air where birds fly and clouds gather, the height where the sun, moon and stars are set, and the dwelling place of God above all of it. The same word carries the rain falling on a field and the throne of God, because for the biblical writers these are not separate compartments but one upward realm that climbs out of human reach into God's own space. The expanse God spreads out and then names "heaven" in Genesis 1:8 (רָקִיעַ) is the same thing the psalms look up at and the prophets watch go dark.

The word is always plural in form, the way English says "waters", and Hebrew has no singular for it. That plural is not a tally of stacked heavens. The ancient Greek translators regularly rendered it with a single word for heaven (οὐρανός), and the Bible's own "heaven of heavens" works as a superlative, the utmost reach, rather than a count.

Joined with "earth" the word does something different: naming the two far ends of things is a Hebrew way of meaning everything in between, so "heaven and earth" is the whole universe. That pairing opens the Bible in Genesis 1:1 and runs through it as shorthand for all that exists. It also gives Hebrew its word for what we would call mid air, since a thing suspended off the ground hangs "between heaven and earth".

Around these central uses cluster a set of everyday turns of phrase, and they are worth knowing because English Bibles translate them literally:

  • "the host of heaven" can mean the stars themselves or the heavenly beings around God, and worshiping it is condemned as idolatry
  • "under heaven" simply means anywhere on earth, the whole inhabited world
  • something "as high as heaven" is out of reach, and the "end of heaven" is the farthest place there is
  • "as the days of heaven" means for as long as the world lasts
  • when God brings a case against his people, heaven and earth are summoned to listen as witnesses

Nuances

1athe sky as the open air over the earth: where birds fly, clouds gather, and rain, dew, frost and storm come from
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 1:8Gen 1:9Gen 1:20Gen 1:26Gen 1:28Gen 1:30Gen 2:19Gen 2:20Gen 6:7Gen 7:3Gen 7:11Gen 7:23
Gen 1:8

Whether the expanse that Genesis 1:8 names "heaven" was conceived as a solid vault holding back waters above the earth, or as open sky.

  • contestedThe text reflects an ancient picture of a solid, hammered out dome over the earth, beneath which the sun, moon and stars move and above which water is held back.; Paul H. Seely, "The Firmament and the Water Above, Part I: The Meaning of raqiaʿ in Gen 1:6-8," Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991): 227-240; Paul H. Seely, "The Firmament and the Water Above, Part II," Westminster Theological Journal 54 (1992); John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011
  • contestedThe solid dome is a modern reconstruction rather than a biblical claim; the word for the expanse need not denote a hard vault, and the comparative Mesopotamian evidence is itself contested.; Randall W. Younker and Richard M. Davidson, "The Myth of the Solid Heavenly Dome: Another Look at the Hebrew raqiaʿ," Andrews University Seminary Studies 49 (2011): 125-147; Noel K. Weeks, "Cosmology in Historical Context," Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006): 283-293
  • contestedThe language is genuinely ancient and describes the sky as it appears, without committing the text to any fixed physical model of the heavens.; Kyle Greenwood, Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015; C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary, Phillipsburg: P&R, 2006
1bthe height where the sun, moon and stars are set, including the "host of heaven" that Israel was forbidden to worship
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 1:14Gen 1:15Gen 1:17Gen 15:5Gen 22:17Gen 26:4Exo 32:13Deu 1:10Deu 4:19Deu 10:22Deu 17:3Deu 28:62
1cheaven as the dwelling place of God: where he is enthroned, hears prayer, speaks, and acts from
Gen 19:24Gen 21:17Gen 22:11Gen 22:15Gen 24:7Gen 28:12Gen 28:17Exo 16:4Exo 20:22Deu 4:36Deu 26:15Deu 32:40
1dthe highest heaven, the utmost reach of all, named to say that not even it can hold God
Deu 10:141Ki 8:272Ch 2:6(5)2Ch 6:18Neh 9:6Psa 68:33(34) (2×)Psa 148:4
1eheaven together with earth, the two named to mean the whole created universe
TranslatabilityApproximate
Gen 1:1Gen 2:1Gen 2:4 (2×)Gen 14:19Gen 14:22Gen 24:3Exo 20:4Exo 20:11Exo 31:17Deu 3:24Deu 4:39Deu 5:8
1fheaven called on to listen and testify when God brings his case against his people
TranslatabilityDirect
Deu 4:26Deu 30:19Deu 31:28Deu 32:1Job 20:27Psa 50:4Psa 50:6Isa 1:2Jer 2:12
1gheaven as the measure of what is out of reach: sheer height, or the farthest limit there is
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 11:4Deu 1:28Deu 4:32Deu 9:1Deu 30:4Deu 30:122Ch 28:9Ezr 9:6Neh 1:9Job 11:8Job 20:6Psa 103:11
1hin the phrase "under heaven", anywhere on earth: the whole inhabited world
TranslatabilityApproximate
Gen 6:17Gen 7:19Exo 17:14Deu 2:25Deu 7:24Deu 9:14Deu 25:19Deu 29:202Ki 14:27Job 28:24Job 37:3Job 41:11
1iin comparisons of time, the sky as a measure of duration: for as long as the world lasts
TranslatabilityApproximate
Deu 11:21Job 14:12Psa 89:29(30)

What scholars say about shamayim

The lexica agree on the referent and treat שָמַיִם as one word with a unified range (HALOT, BDB, DCH): the visible sky and atmosphere, the region of the celestial bodies, and the dwelling of God, together with the frequent word pair "heaven and earth" for the created totality. Formally the noun has no attested singular and appears only in the -ayim form. Older reference works parsed that ending as a dual and inferred two heavens, a visible arch in which the clouds move plus a higher region where the celestial bodies revolve; modern grammars and lexica instead treat it as a frozen or abnormal plural, a noun found only in the plural, grouped with מַיִם "water" and the place names מִצְרַיִם and יְרוּשָלַיִם. Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze state flatly that these are not duals but abnormal plurals, and the Septuagint's regular singular οὐρανός at Genesis 1:1 and 2:1 is indirect ancient support for a referentially singular reading. The dominant etymology derives the word from an unused root meaning "to be high" (compare Arabic samaʾ), reconstructing Proto-Semitic *šamāy-; the derivation from מַיִם "water" is generally rejected as an assonant folk etymology. Cognates include Ugaritic šmm, Phoenician šmm, Aramaic שְמַיָּא, Akkadian šamû and Arabic samaʾ, and the fixed Ugaritic word pair "earth and heavens" is the direct antecedent of the biblical pairing. Stadelmann and Houtman remain the standard monographic treatments; both argue that the Hebrew Bible does not present a structured multi level heaven, that the heaven and earth pair expresses totality, and that "heaven of heavens" belongs to elevated liturgical style as an intensification rather than as evidence of fixed tiers. The most contested comparative question is whether the רָקִיעַ that Genesis 1:8 names שָמַיִם was conceived as a solid vault holding back waters above: Seely, Keel, Walton and Enns argue that it was, Younker and Davidson argue that the solid dome is a modern construct and that even the Mesopotamian material (Horowitz, Lambert) is contested, while Greenwood and C. John Collins mediate by reading the language as a description of the sky as it appears. On the theological side, the tension between heaven as God's dwelling (1 Kings 8:30) and the confession that heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain him (1 Kings 8:27) anchors the discussion of Deuteronomistic name theology (Weinfeld, Mettinger, Richter, Sommer, Hundley). By the Second Temple period the word becomes a reverential substitute for God, and apocalyptic literature develops tiered heavens (Wright, Yarbro Collins, Himmelfarb), a trajectory Pennington's work on Matthew complicates; that later reinterpretation of the plural as literal multiplicity should not be read back into biblical Hebrew usage, where the plural signifies totality.

Where scholars disagree about shamayim

Whether the word's plural shape means more than one heaven, or is simply a fixed plural form with a singular sense.

  • majorityA fixed or abnormal plural, a noun that exists only in the plural while referring to one thing, grouped with the Hebrew word for water and with place names of the same shape; the ending is not a genuine "two" ending and implies no count of heavens.; Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000, 42; Koehler, Baumgartner, et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. שָמַיִם; Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., s.v. שָמַיִם
  • minorityA "two" form, taken in the older reference tradition to allude to two heavens: the visible arch in which the clouds move, and a higher region where the celestial bodies revolve.; James Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible, New York: Eaton and Mains, 1890, s.v. שָמַיִם
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Koehler, Baumgartner, et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. שָמַיִםlexicon
  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), s.v. שָמַיִםlexicon
  • Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. שָמַיִםlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., s.v. שָמַיִםlexicon
  • Botterweck, Ringgren, Fabry (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 15, article שָמַיִםtheological-dictionary
  • Jenni and Westermann (eds.), Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT), article שָמַיִםtheological-dictionary
  • Van der Merwe, Naudé and Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000, 42grammar
  • Luis I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World (Analecta Biblica 39), Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970monograph
  • Cornelis Houtman, Der Himmel im Alten Testament: Israels Weltbild und Weltanschauung (Oudtestamentische Studiën 30), Leiden: Brill, 1993monograph
  • Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1998monograph
  • James P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, New Haven: Yale Egyptological Seminar, 1988monograph
  • Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010monograph
  • Paul H. Seely, "The Firmament and the Water Above, Part I: The Meaning of raqiaʿ in Gen 1:6-8," Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991): 227-240article
  • Randall W. Younker and Richard M. Davidson, "The Myth of the Solid Heavenly Dome: Another Look at the Hebrew raqiaʿ," Andrews University Seminary Studies 49 (2011): 125-147article
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972monograph
  • Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies, Lund: Gleerup, 1982monograph
  • Sandra L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology (BZAW 318), Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002monograph
  • J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000monograph
  • Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993monograph
  • Jonathan T. Pennington, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew, Leiden: Brill, 2007monograph

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

All attested forms of שָׁמַיִם

m p absolute

שָּׁמַיִם, שָׁמַיִם, שָּׁמָיִם, שָׁמָיִם, שָּׁמַיְמָ, שָּׁמָיְמָ, שָמַיִם

Gen 1:1, Gen 1:9, Gen 1:14, Gen 1:15, Gen 1:26, Gen 1:28, Gen 1:30, Gen 2:1

m p construct

שְׁמֵי, שְּׁמֵי

Deu 10:14, 1Ki 8:27, 2Ch 2:6, 2Ch 6:18, Neh 9:6, Psa 68:33, Psa 68:33, Psa 148:4

m p construct

שָׁמֶיךָ

Deu 28:23, Psa 8:3, Psa 144:5

m p construct

שְׁמֵיכֶם

Lev 26:19

m p construct

שָׁמָיו

Deu 33:28