Hebrew word · H129

אֲדָמִי

va'adami

Adami

Adami probably connects with adom ("red") or adamah ("ground, soil"), perhaps describing the reddish soil. Neqev comes from a root meaning "to bore, pierce, hollow out" (compare neqev, "socket/setting," Ezek 28:13). So hanneqev is plausibly "the pass" or "the hollow."

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Adami = "man of Adar"

a pass or fortified place in Naphtali

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Joshua 19:33

Range of meaning

Adami probably connects with adom ("red") or adamah ("ground, soil"), perhaps describing the reddish soil. Neqev comes from a root meaning "to bore, pierce, hollow out" (compare neqev, "socket/setting," Ezek 28:13). So hanneqev is plausibly "the pass" or "the hollow."

Against the English

BSB, WEB, ESV and NASB combine the two words as "Adami-nekeb." KJV and YLT list "Adami, Nekeb" as two separate places.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Masoretic accents (the ancient reading marks) link adami to hanneqev. The word "the" before Nekeb fits a descriptive add-on ("Adami of the Pass") better than an independent town. The Jerusalem Talmud (Megillah 1:1) gives later names for the sites in this list, a sign the line was still being traced on the ground centuries later. Modern geographers (e.g. Aharoni) generally place Adami at Khirbet Damiyeh / Tel Adami, southwest of Tiberias.

Similar words

Where it appears

Joshua · 1

  1. Joshua 19:33 וַאֲדָמִ֥י and Adami

    Their border started at Heleph and the great tree of Zaanannim, passing Adami-nekeb and Jabneel as far as Lakkum and ending at the Jordan.

    Here: "And Adami." The accent joins it to the following word, so the two most likely form one name, Adami-nekeb. It is commonly identified with Khirbet Damiyeh (Tel Adami), southwest of the Sea of Galilee.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.