Yom

For other uses, see Yom (disambiguation).

Yom (Hebrew: יום‎) is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The word means "day" in both Modern and Biblical Hebrew.

Overview

Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word can be used in different ways to refer to different time spans:

• A point of time (a specific day)
• A time period of a half or whole day:
  • Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness)
  • Sunrise to sunset
  • Sunset to next sunset
• A general term for time (as in "days of our lives")
• A year (in the plural use, as in "lived a lot of days")
• A time period of unspecified length
• A long, but finite, span of time

Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary, with fewer words than other languages, such as English or Spanish.^[1][a] Hence words often have multiple meanings, with the exact meaning determined by context.^[9] In Strong's Lexicon, yom is Hebrew #3117 יוֹם, from an unused root that means "to be hot, as the warm hours of the day."^[10]

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); either "epoch" or 24-hour "day", depending on interpretation (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31) – see § Creationism, below.

Yom relates to the concept of time, and is used not just for "day" or "days", but for time in general. How yom is translated depends on context, using hermeneutics.^[11] The word day is used somewhat the same way in the English language, as in "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 names of various Jewish feast days; as, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and Yom Teruah (lit., day of shouting), the biblical name for Rosh Hashannah, the Feast of Trumpets.

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

See also

• Yom Tov, 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.
• Old-Earth creationism Yom has various meanings depending on its context.
  • Gap creationism 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 Yom is time span.
  • Progressive creationism Yom is a time span, but there are gaps of time.
• Evolutionary creationism (or theistic evolution, seeking to harmonize the Bible and the theory of evolution): the literal interpretation of Yom is not crucial. Yom is sometimes also interpreted metaphorically.

See also Age of the Earth.

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.^[2][3] For comparison modern English has over 450,000 words,^[4][5] and Spanish has just over 175,000 words. Standard English dictionaries typically have about 200,000 words,^[6] whereas Spanish dictionaries have about 80,000 words.^[7][8]