Hebrew word · H2525
חָם
cham
hot
Hot or warm. It is used of freshly baked bread still hot (Josh 9:12) and, as a related noun, of daytime heat (Gen 18:1, 'in the heat of the day'; Isa 18:4).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
hot, warm
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
- Range of meaning
Hot or warm. It is used of freshly baked bread still hot (Josh 9:12) and, as a related noun, of daytime heat (Gen 18:1, 'in the heat of the day'; Isa 18:4).
- Against the English
BSB 'get hot' and ESV/NASB 'are hot' are accurate. KJV/YLT/WEB 'warm' can sound mild or even pleasant to a modern reader.
- How it drifted
In older English 'warm' covered a wider range of real heat. Today it suggests comfort.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Josh 9:12; the related noun ḥōm, 'heat', in Gen 8:22 ('cold and heat, summer and winter') and Job 6:17 ('when it is hot, the streams vanish').
Where it appears
Joshua · 1
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Joshua 9:12 חָ֞ם warm
This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to come to you. But look, it is now dry and moldy.
Here: 'Hot', put first for emphasis: it was fresh from the oven when they packed it. It sets up the contrast with 'dry' at the end of the verse.
Job · 1
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Job 37:17 חַמִּ֑ים [are] hot
You whose clothes get hot when the land lies hushed under the south wind,
Here: 'Hot'. The same word is used of bread fresh from the oven (Josh 9:12). This is real heat, not cosy warmth: the stifling, sweaty heat of a scorching day.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.