Hebrew word · H7290
רָדַם
nirdam
to sleep
To be in a deep, heavy sleep, unconscious or stupefied. The related noun tardēmâ is the 'deep sleep' God brings on Adam (Genesis 2:21) and Abram (Genesis 15:12).
Appears 7 times in 7 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Niphal) to be asleep, be unconscious, be in heavy sleep, fall into heavy sleep, be fast asleep
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 Proverbs 10:5
- Range of meaning
To be in a deep, heavy sleep, unconscious or stupefied. The related noun tardēmâ is the 'deep sleep' God brings on Adam (Genesis 2:21) and Abram (Genesis 15:12).
- Against the English
All the major versions have 'sleeps'. That is accurate but flat. The Hebrew implies sound, oblivious sleep, not a short rest.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Jonah 1:5: Jonah is fast asleep while the storm threatens the ship. Judges 4:21: the exhausted Sisera. Psalm 76:6: horse and rider stunned into deep sleep. Proverbs 19:15: 'laziness casts into deep sleep (tardēmâ)'. Proverbs 6:9–11: the sluggard's 'a little sleep, a little slumber' leads to poverty.
- Range of meaning
The verb radam appears only in this form, which carries a passive or 'falling-into-a-state' sense. It means to be in, or sink into, a heavy, senseless sleep or stupor: being out cold rather than dozing. The related noun tardemah is the 'deep sleep' God brings on Adam (Gen 2:21), Abram during the covenant vision (Gen 15:12), and Saul's camp (1 Sam 26:12). It is also the sleep in which night visions come (Job 4:13; 33:15).
- Against the English
Most English versions say 'deep sleep' (KJV, WEB, BSB, NIV, ESV; NASB 'sank into a deep sleep'). YLT has 'trance' and NLT 'fainted'. 'Deep sleep' is lexically defensible but suggests ordinary, restful slumber. 'Fainted' captures the collapse but loses the link to the God-given sleep of vision scenes. 'Trance' suggests a cultivated mystical state, which the text does not describe.
- How it drifted
In modern English 'sleep' means rest, and 'deep sleep' means good rest. Hebrew radam stresses being knocked senseless, whether by exhaustion (Sisera, Judg 4:21), by God's rebuke (Ps 76:6, where horse and rider are 'stunned', effectively dead), or by being overwhelmed.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Other occurrences: Judg 4:21 (Sisera, exhausted and dead asleep); Jonah 1:5–6 (Jonah sleeping through a storm); Ps 76:6 (Heb. 76:7; chariot and horse lie stunned); Prov 10:5 (the son who sleeps through harvest); Dan 10:9 (the same experience again). Jerome's Latin Vulgate renders it 'collapsus sum', 'I collapsed', reading it as a physical collapse.
- Range of meaning
'To be in, or sink into, heavy sleep,' a deep, senseless sleep, sometimes stunned or trance-like. The related noun tardēmāh is the 'deep sleep' that God causes in Gen 2:21, 15:12, 1 Sam 26:12, Isa 29:10.
- Against the English
'Fell into a deep sleep' (BSB) and 'was fast asleep' (KJV, WEB, YLT) are good. A loose 'was sleeping' would lose the sense of a stupor.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Judg 4:21 (Sisera, exhausted, before his death); Prov 10:5 (the son who sleeps through harvest, a disgrace); Dan 8:18; 10:9 (Daniel stunned to the ground during a vision); Ps 76:6 (horse and rider stunned by God's rebuke). The LXX renders 'he was sleeping and snoring' (ekatheuden kai erenchen).
Where it appears
Judges · 1
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Judges 4:21 נִרְדָּ֥ם [was] sleeping
But as he lay sleeping from exhaustion, Heber’s wife Jael took a tent peg, grabbed a hammer, and went silently to Sisera. She drove the peg through his temple and into the ground, and he died.
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 76:6 נִ֝רְדָּ֗ם [were] sleeping
At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and rider lie stunned.
Here: A participle (a verb form describing a state). The enemy lies in a deep, helpless stupor, the kind of sleep you cannot wake from. Coming straight after v.5 ('they slept their sleep'), it reads as the sleep of death. The verb is singular because 'chariotry and horse' is treated as one mass that has gone still.
Proverbs · 1
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Proverbs 10:5 נִרְדָּ֥ם [one who] sleeps
He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.
Here: 'Sound asleep,' dead to the world. The verb describes heavy sleep: Jonah asleep in the storm (Jonah 1:5) and Sisera worn out (Judges 4:21). The picture is not a short rest. It is a young man out cold while the crop waits.
Daniel · 2
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Daniel 8:18 נִרְדַּ֥מְתִּי I was dazed
While he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep, with my face to the ground. Then he touched me, helped me to my feet,
Here: Daniel goes out like a light: a heavy, stupor-like loss of consciousness. This is not restful sleep. The same verb is used of Sisera knocked out by exhaustion and of chariot and horse 'stunned' by God's rebuke (Ps 76:6).
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Daniel 10:9 נִרְדָּ֥ם dazed
I heard the sound of his words, and as I listened, I fell into a deep sleep, with my face to the ground.
Jonah · 2
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Jonah 1:5 וַיֵּרָדַֽם׃ and he had fallen fast asleep
The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
Here: A heavy, senseless sleep, a stupor. The same root describes the sleep God put on Adam (Gen 2:21) and on Abram (Gen 15:12) and the collapse of Sisera (Judg 4:21). It also echoes the sound of yarad, 'go down': Jonah's descent ends in unconsciousness.
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Jonah 1:6 נִרְדָּ֑ם sleeping
The captain approached him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps this God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”
Here: A participle (a verb used like a noun or adjective), describing Jonah as one sunk in a heavy, insensible sleep. It works almost as a name, "you sleeper!" It repeats the verb of v. 5 (vayyeradam) and plays on yarad, "go down", the word for Jonah's whole descent.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.