אָדֹם
to be red
‘to be red’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Pual verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel. Here: ‘reddened’
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself).
Form
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 6 times (60%)
- Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H119 appears — 10 distinct verses across 5 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Exodus 6 verses
- Exodus 25:5 מְאָדָּמִ֛ים Pual ptcp.pass mp rams' skins dyed red, sea cow hides, acacia wood,
- Exodus 26:14 מְאָדָּמִ֑ים Pual ptcp.pass mp You shall make a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sea cow hides above.
- Exodus 35:7 מְאָדָּמִ֛ים Pual ptcp.pass mp rams' skins dyed red, sea cow hides, acacia wood,
- Exodus 35:23 מְאָדָּמִ֛ים Pual ptcp.pass mp Everyone, with whom was found blue, purple, scarlet, fine linen, goats' hair, rams' skins dyed red, and sea cow hides, brought them.
- Exodus 36:19 מְאָדָּמִ֑ים Pual ptcp.pass mp He made a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sea cow hides above.
- Exodus 39:34 הַ/מְאָדָּמִ֔ים ptcl def.art + Pual ptcp.pass mp the covering of rams' skins dyed red, the covering of sea cow hides, the veil of the screen,
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 1 verse
Lamentations 1 verse
Nahum 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
The Hebrew verb אדם centers on the idea of “to be red.” Exodus dominates its distribution — 6 of 10 verses. Spanning 10 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 4 stems (Qal, Pual, and more). Its English rendering has broadened — “dyed red” classically, “reddened” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Dig into 10-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H119 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 10 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 10 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 6 verses · 60%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 20%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 20%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Dyed red 5×
- American Standard Version: Dyed red 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Dyed red 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Reddened 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H119 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H119 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H119 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H119 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel) and Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 4 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. אָֽדְמוּ ruddy, of Nazirites La 4:7; e.g. Lamentations 4:7
Pual
- Pt. reddened, dyed red, מְאָדָּם Na 2:4 (of shield), מְאָדָּמִים of rams’ skins Ex 25:5; 26:14; 35:7, 23; 36:19; 39:34 (all P). e.g. Nahum 2:4
Hithpael
- Impf. redden, grow or look red, יִתְאַדָּ֑ם Pr 23:31 of wine); e.g. Proverbs 23:31
Hiphil
- Impf. emit (show) redness (cf. LagBN 120) יַאְדִּימוּ כַתּוֹלָע Is 1:18 (of sins) i.e. be glaring, flagrant (cf. also v 15). e.g. Isaiah 1:18
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
vb. be red (on format. cf. LagBN 83 cf. 120)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: of unknown derivation
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
אֲדַם
- , v. הֲדַם. [v. Rabb. D. S. to Ab. Zar. 38ᵇ, Bets. 24ᵇ, note.]
אָדַם
- , v. דמם) [to be viscous, thick, dark] to be red, grow red.
- to redden, make red. Y. Sabb. VII, 10ᶜ top המְאַדֵּם אודם he who produces a red spot (congestion of blood, on a Sabbath).
- 1. (b. h.) (b. h.) to be, grow red. Num. R. s. 9 (p. 231ᵇ ed. Amst.) מַאֲדֶמֶת (היתה) if she was red-faced. Ḥull. 53ᵇ; a. fr.
- 2. to cause to blush, put to shame (usu. הלבין). Num. R. s. 4 (p. 218ᵈ ed. Amst.) (play on עובד אדום).—Part. מַאֲדִים the planet Mars. Sabb. 156ᵃ.—Part. Hof. מְאָדָּם, מְאוּדָּם. Y. Sabb. VII, 10ᶜ top מְאָדָּמִים dyed red.
אָדָם
- m. (b. h.) man, pr. n. m. Adam, frequ. א׳ הראשון (abbr. אה"ר). Gen. R. s. 17; a. fr.—ספרו של, ספרא דאה"ר אה"ר the (allegorical) book of Adam containing all generations and their leaders from beginning to resurrection, i.e. destinies of humanity. Ex. R. s. 40 beg. B. Mets. 85ᵇ bot.
אֲדָם
- (= דָּם, דְּמָא) blood. Targ. I Chron. XXII, 7; a. e.—Y. Maas. Sh. V, 56ᵈ top מגבלא אַדְמֵיה to mix its (the bird’s) blood. Git. 47ᵃ; v. חוּל II. Pl. אַדְמִין. Targ. I Chr. l. c.; a. e.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms H119 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| מְאָדָּמִ֛ים | Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 25:5 | 3 |
| מְאָדָּמִ֑ים | Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 26:14 | 2 |
| אָ֤דְמוּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Lamentations 4:7 | 1 |
| הַ/מְאָדָּמִ֔ים | Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 39:34 | 1 |
| יִתְאַ֫דָּ֥ם | Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Proverbs 23:31 | 1 |
| יַאְדִּ֥ימוּ | Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Isaiah 1:18 | 1 |
| מְאָדָּ֗ם | Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nahum 2:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H119, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
- אדם ʼâdâm H120 man
- אדם ʼâdôm H122 red
- אדם ʼôdem H124 ruby
- אדמדם ʼădamdâm H125 reddish
- אדמה ʼădâmâh H127 ground
- אדמני ʼadmônîy H132 red
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 10 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
