StrongerBible

tam

תָּם

HebrewH8535“blameless, perfect, ...”

Appears 16 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 25:27Exo 26:24Exo 36:29Job 1:1Job 1:8Job 2:3Job 8:20Job 9:20Job 9:21Job 9:22Psa 37:37Psa 64:4(5)Pro 29:10Sng 5:2Sng 6:9Jer 6:29
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeTAHMadjective

What tam means

whole and complete, with nothing lacking or false in it: sound and entire, and of a person, of undivided integrity

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

At its core this word means simply "whole." Whatever it describes is complete, with nothing missing, nothing added, and nothing false. The same word can therefore stretch across very different settings: wooden frames fitted snugly together, a beloved who is flawless in her lover's eyes, a calm and settled temperament, and above all a person whose life holds together as one honest piece.

That last, moral use is by far the most common, and it carries the most weight. It gathers around the book of Job, where Job is given this word by the narrator and then twice by God himself. It stands beside its regular partner יָשָׁר, "upright," to describe the whole person: an integrity on the inside matched by straight dealing on the outside, reverence for God matched by turning away from evil.

The single hardest occurrence is Genesis 25:27, where Jacob is called by this word even though his story is full of bargaining and deception. Readers have disagreed for centuries over what it means there, and the main proposals are laid out on that verse.

One thread runs through every use: the word points to wholeness, not to flawlessness. A person can be called "whole" in this sense and still be a sinner, as Job himself keeps insisting.

Nuances

1amorally whole: a person of undivided integrity, blameless in conduct and devotion, though not sinless
Job 1:1Job 1:8Job 2:3Job 8:20Job 9:20Job 9:21Job 9:22Psa 37:37Psa 64:4(5)Pro 29:10
1bmaterially complete: whole and entire, fitted together with nothing lacking
TranslatabilityApproximate
Exo 26:24Exo 36:29Jer 6:29
1cflawless and perfect: a tender name for one who is complete and beyond compare in the lover's eyes
TranslatabilityApproximate
Sng 5:2Sng 6:9
1dsound and settled in manner: quiet, even, and straightforward, said of a person's temperament
CertaintyContested
Gen 25:27
Gen 25:27

What the word means when Jacob is called a man who is tam in Genesis 25:27, since the moral sense it carries elsewhere sits awkwardly with his later scheming.

  • majorityA quiet, settled, retiring temperament, contrasted with Esau the wild hunter, a behavioral rather than moral description.; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Anchor Bible); C. Westermann, Genesis 12-36 (Continental Commentary); G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary); N. M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary)
  • minoritySound, even-tempered, and mature: a wholesome character whose integrity is only fully realized later in the story.; B. K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary; V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 18-50 (NICOT)
  • minorityThe full moral sense used deliberately and ironically, casting Jacob as the covenantally innocent chosen son even while his conduct is compromised.; R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981); C. D. Evans, 'The Patriarch Jacob: An Innocent Man', Bible Review 2:1 (1986)

What scholars say about tam

The adjective derives from the root תמם, "to be complete, finished," reflecting a Proto-Semitic *tmm, "to be whole," seen in Arabic tamma, Ugaritic tm, and Phoenician tm/tmm. The recently identified Late Babylonian tamimu ("complete, healthy," of cattle) shows that the cultic "unblemished" sense was inherited Semitic vocabulary rather than a Priestly innovation, while the Akkadian verb tamu ("to swear") is a false cognate, so the old link to oath-taking and to the Urim and Thummim has no philological basis. Across HALOT, BDB, DCH (Clines), TDOT (Kedar-Kopfstein, vol. XV), TLOT (Gerleman), and NIDOTTE (Wakely) the semantic pattern is consistent: a spatial-quantitative core of completeness fanning out into moral, forensic, and aesthetic registers. The most important twentieth-century development is the near-universal move from glossing the word as "sinlessness" to "undivided, wholehearted orientation toward God," which dissolves the old worry about how a human could be called blameless. Two live debates remain. First, whether תָּם is a distinct lexeme from תָּמִים (DCH) or a register-variant of one word (BDB, HALOT, TLOT, TDOT, NIDOTTE). Second, the reading of Genesis 25:27, where behavioral ("quiet, settled": Speiser, Westermann, Wenham, Sarna), integrated-maturity (Waltke, Hamilton), and ironic-moral (Alter, Evans) interpretations compete. In Job the meaning "integrity" is not in doubt even at the sharpest crux (9:20 to 22), where Job maintains he is blameless while God appears to treat him as guilty (Clines, Habel, Hartley, Pope, Seow).

Where scholars disagree about tam

Whether תָּם is a distinct word from its longer relative תָּמִים, or simply a shorter form of the same word used in different settings.

  • majorityTwo forms of one word, differentiated by register: תָּמִים at home in worship and covenant, תָּם in wisdom and poetry.; BDB, s.v.; HALOT, s.v.; G. Gerleman, TLOT (THAT II, 1976); B. Kedar-Kopfstein, TDOT, vol. XV; R. Wakely, NIDOTTE, vol. 4
  • minorityTwo distinct words with overlapping but not identical ranges of meaning.; DCH (D. J. A. Clines, ed.), vol. 8
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

  • HALOT, s.v. תָּםlexicon
  • BDB, pp. 1070-71, s.v. תָּםlexicon
  • DCH (D. J. A. Clines, ed.), vol. 8, s.v. תָּםlexicon
  • B. Kedar-Kopfstein, 'תָּמַם', TDOT, vol. XV (2006)theological-dictionary
  • G. Gerleman, 'תמם', TLOT (THAT II, 1976)theological-dictionary
  • R. Wakely, 'תמם', NIDOTTE, vol. 4theological-dictionary
  • E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Anchor Bible)commentary
  • G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary)commentary
  • V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 18-50 (NICOT)commentary
  • D. J. A. Clines, Job (Word Biblical Commentary)commentary
  • N. C. Habel, The Book of Job (Old Testament Library)commentary
  • J. E. Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT)commentary
  • R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981)monograph

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

All attested forms of תָּם

m s absolute

תָּם, תַּם

Gen 25:27, Job 1:1, Job 1:8, Job 2:3, Job 8:20, Job 9:20, Job 9:21, Job 9:22

f s construct

תַמָּתִי

Sng 5:2, Sng 6:9

m p absolute

תַמִּים

Exo 26:24, Exo 36:29