Yom ( he, יום) is a
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
word which occurs in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
. The word means day in both Modern and Biblical Hebrew.
Overview
Although ''yom'' is commonly rendered as
day in English translations, the word yom can be used in different ways to refer to different time spans:
*Point of time (a specific day)
*time period of a whole or half a day:
**Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
**
Sunrise
Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects.
Terminology
Al ...
to
sunset
Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...
**Sunset to next sunset
*General term for
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
( as in 'days of our lives')
*A
year
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hou ...
"lived a lot of days"
*Time period of unspecified length. "days and days"
Biblical Hebrew has a limited
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
, with fewer words compared to other
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s, such as
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
or
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. This means words often have multiple meanings determined by context.
Strong's Lexicon yom is Hebrew #3117 יוֹם 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
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
.
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
Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstre ...
days; as, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; Yom teruah (lit., day of shouting) the Feast of Trumpets.
jewfaq.org, A Gentile's Guide to the Jewish Holidays
/ref>
Yom is also used in each of the days of the week in the Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar ( he, הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, translit=HaLuah HaIvri), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance, and as an official calendar of the state of Israel. I ...
.
See also
*Yom Tov, in plural Yamim Tovim, literally the Good Day(s), the Jewish holidays
Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstre ...
*Yom tov sheni shel galuyot The second festival day in the Diaspora
*Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement
*Yom Kippur Katan
Yom Kippur Katan ( translation from Hebrew: "Minor Day of Atonement"), is a practice observed by some Jews on the day preceding each Rosh Chodesh. The observance consists of fasting and supplication, but is much less rigorous than that of Yom Kipp ...
Minor Day of Atonement
*Yom Ha'atzmaut
Independence Day ( he, יום העצמאות ''Yom Ha'atzmaut'', lit. "Day of Independence") is the national day of Israel, commemorating the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. The day is marked by official and unofficial ceremonies ...
, Israeli Independence Day
*Yom HaShoah
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah ( he, יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה, , lit=Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Reme ...
, 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 ( he, יום ירושלים, ) is an Israeli national holiday that commemorates the "reunification" of East Jerusalem (including the Old City) with West Jerusalem following the Six-Day War of 1967, which saw Israel occupy Eas ...
Jerusalem Day
*The Day of the Lord
"The Day of the Lord" is a biblical term and theme used in both the Hebrew Bible ( ''Yom Yahweh'') and the New Testament (, ''hēmera Kyriou''), as in ''"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the t ...
Events of the end times.
;Creationism
*Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespre ...
Yom has various meanings depending on its context, but the consecutive days in Genesis 1 mean 24 hours
*Old Earth creationism
Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolutionism.
Broadly sp ...
Yom has various meanings.
**Gap creationism
Gap creationism (also known as ruin-restoration creationism, restoration creationism, or "the Gap Theory") is a form of old Earth creationism that posits that the six-''yom'' creation period, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved six lit ...
Yom is 24 hours, but there is a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, before the six consecutive days of creation.
**Day-age creationism
Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but are much longer perio ...
Yom is time span.
**Progressive creationism
Progressive creationism (see for comparison intelligent design) is the religious belief that God created new forms of life gradually over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of old Earth creationism, it accepts mainstream geologi ...
Yom is time span, but there are gaps of time.
*Evolutionary creationism
Evolutionary creation, also presented as Evolutionary creationism, is the religious belief that God as Creator brings about his plan through processes of evolution. It is a type of creationism which, like theistic evolution, accepts modern science ...
(or Theistic evolution, making theory of evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...
and Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
compatible): the literal interpretation of Yom is not crucial. Yom is sometimes also interpreted metaphorically.
;Geology
*Age of the Earth
The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years This age may represent the age of Earth's accretion, or core formation, or of the material from which Earth formed. This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of ...
Notes
References
{{Reflist
Further reading
Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, pages 51-53, 60–61, Baker 1982
*Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, page 271, Zondervan 1999
Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible