Yom

Yom (Hebrew: יום‎) is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament). The Arabic equivalent is yawm or yōm written as يوم.

For other uses, see Yom (disambiguation).

Overview

Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word yom has several literal definitions:[1]

  • Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
  • General term for time
  • Point of time
  • Sunrise to sunset
  • Sunset to next sunset
  • A year (in the plural; I Sam 27:7; Ex 13:10, etc.)
  • Time period of unspecified length.
  • A long, but finite span of time - age - epoch - season.

Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary, with fewer words compared to other languages, such as English (which has the largest).[2][lower-alpha 1] This means words often have multiple meanings determined by context.[10] Strong's Lexicon yom is Hebrew #3117 יוֹם [11] The word Yom's root meaning is to be hot as the warm hours of a day.

Thus "yom", in its context, is sometimes translated as: "time" (Gen 4:3, Is. 30:8); "year" (I Kings 1:1, 2 Chronicles 21:19, Amos 4:4); "age" (Gen 18:11, 24:1 and 47:28; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2); "always" (Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24 and 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7); "season" (Genesis 40:4, Joshua 24:7, 2 Chronicles 15:3); epoch or 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31) – see "Creationism", below.

Yom relates to the concept of time. Yom is not just for day, days, but for time in general. How yom is translated depends on the context of its use with other words in the sentence around it, using hermeneutics.[12]

The word day is used somewhat the same way in the English language, examples: "In my grandfather's day, cars did not go very fast" or "In the day of the dinosaurs there were not many mammals."

The word Yom is used in the name of various Jewish feast days; as, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; Yom teruah (lit., day of shouting) the Feast of Trumpets.[13]

Yom is also used in each of the days of the week in the Hebrew calendar.

gollark: And don't see any particular reason not to.
gollark: ... because I want to, mostly.
gollark: <@557621516951355414> I don't really understand what you're asking, can you restate the question or whatever?
gollark: They're not going to have YouTubers say "well, actually, I didn't really like it".
gollark: I thought that was kind of obvious.

See also
  • Kalantaka, a form of Shiva who is Lord of Time and born as Yama
  • Yama
  • Yom Tov, in plural Yamim Tovim, literally the Good Day(s), the Jewish holidays
  • Yom tov sheni shel galuyot The second festival day in the Diaspora
  • Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement
  • Yom Kippur Katan Minor Day of Atonement
  • Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day
  • Yom HaShoah, full name Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day
  • Yom Hazikaron Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldier
  • Yom Yerushalayim Jerusalem Day
  • The Day of the Lord Events of the end times.
Creationism
  • Young Earth creationism Yom has various meanings depending on its context, but the consecutive days in Genesis 1 mean 24 hours
  • Old Earth creationism Yom has various meanings.
  • Evolutionary creationism (or Theistic evolution, making theory of evolution and Bible compatible): the literal interpretation of Yom is not crucial.
Geology

Notes
  1. Biblical Hebrew has a very small number of words, about 8,000, and around 1,700 of those words are hapax legomena in the Hebrew Bible. Modern Hebrew has about 100,000 words.[3][4] For comparison modern English has over 450,000 words,[5][6] and Spanish has just over 175,000 words. Standard English dictionaries typically have about 200,000 words,[7] whereas Spanish dictionaries have about 80,000 words.[8][9]

References
  1. Lexiconcordance.com Yom hebrew#3117
  2. A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period, page 10, By William M. Schniedewind
  3. Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics, By Moisés Silva
  4. Passport Israel 3rd Ed., page 12, By Donna Rosenthal
  5. Ling, Johnny (2001). Elert, Glenn (ed.). "Number of words in the English language". The Physics Factbook. Retrieved 2019-07-28.
  6. Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, page 5a, edited by Philip Babcock Gove, Merriam-Webster, Inc
  7. oxforddictionaries.com, How many words are there in the English language?
  8. Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary
  9. Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary, byMerriam-Webster, 80,000 entries
  10. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, page 48, By Bruce K. Waltke, Michael Patrick O'Connor
  11. Strong's Hebrew Lexicon, yom, #3117.
  12. The Hebrew Word “Yom” Used with a Number in Genesis 1, What does “yom” mean in Genesis 1?, by Rodney Whitefield, Ph.D. 12 June 2006
  13. jewfaq.org, A Gentile's Guide to the Jewish Holidays

Further reading
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