Hebrew word · H5161

נֶחֱלָמִי

hanechelami

Nehelam

A gentilic, meaning a label formed with the ending -i that marks where someone comes from or which clan they belong to. Compare 'Tishbite' and 'Gileadite.' It probably means 'belonging to Nehelam,' but no town or clan of that name appears anywhere else in the Bible or in known inscriptions.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

Someone descended from Nehel(?), first mentioned at Jer.29.24

§ Nehelamite = "he of the dream"

the designation of a false prophet Shemaiah taken into captivity to Babylon; name is formed from his native place or his progenitor

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 Jeremiah 29:24

Range of meaning

A gentilic, meaning a label formed with the ending -i that marks where someone comes from or which clan they belong to. Compare 'Tishbite' and 'Gileadite.' It probably means 'belonging to Nehelam,' but no town or clan of that name appears anywhere else in the Bible or in known inscriptions. The consonants n-ḥ-l-m look like the Hebrew root ḥ-l-m, 'to dream,' with a prefix n- of the kind used for passive or reflexive verb forms. That root gives us ḥalom, 'dream.'

Against the English

Every major English version simply transliterates it as 'the Nehelamite.' That is accurate, but the reader loses any chance of hearing the possible echo of 'dreamer.'

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Hebrew Bible it occurs only here and in Jer 29:31–32. The Greek Septuagint (Jer 36:24 in its numbering) seems to have a different form, often printed as 'Elamite.' That suggests early copyists or translators did not know the name either. The Latin Vulgate transliterates it as 'Nehelamitem.' In 29:8 the same chapter warns against 'your dreams which you cause to be dreamed' (ḥalomotekhem asher attem maḥlemim). There the root ḥ-l-m appears twice, in a passage about prophets in Babylon.

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 3

  1. Jeremiah 29:24 הַנֶּחֱלָמִ֖י the Nehelamite

    You are to tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite that

    Here: A label for his family or hometown, like 'the Anathothite' for someone from Anathoth. No place called Nehelam is known. The word sounds like the Hebrew root for 'dream,' and that may be deliberate, since this chapter attacks dream-based prophecy (29:8).

  2. Jeremiah 29:31 הַנֶּחֱלָמִ֑י the Nehelamite

    “Send a message telling all the exiles what the LORD says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you—though I did not send him—and has made you trust in a lie,

    Here: An identifying label, apparently from a place or clan 'Nehelam' otherwise unknown. Its sound resembles the Hebrew root for 'to dream', which may be a deliberate jab (see debates).

  3. Jeremiah 29:32 הַנֶּחֱלָמִי֮ the Nehelamite

    this is what the LORD says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the LORD, for he has preached rebellion against the LORD.’”

    Here: Probably a family or home-town name. No such place is known, and some hear a play on chalam, 'to dream', since the chapter attacks prophets who trade in dreams (v. 8).

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