שָׁמֵם

From the study of Lamentations 1:13

Range of meaning

The verb shamem covers being laid waste, deserted and empty (land, cities, sanctuaries), and also being stunned, horrified or appalled (Ezra 9:3–4; Dan 8:27). One word covers both the ruined place and the shocked people in it.

Against the English

'Desolate' gets the emptiness right. It misses the sense of shock and numbness, and it misses the specific echo of a woman who has been violated and abandoned.

Used elsewhere in the period

2 Samuel 13:20: Tamar lived 'desolate' (shomemah) in Absalom's house after Amnon raped her. Isaiah 54:1: 'the children of the desolate one', where Zion is a bereaved woman. Leviticus 26:32–35 and Jeremiah often use the word for the land after judgment.

From the study of Daniel 9:17

Range of meaning

The root shmm covers two linked ideas: (1) to be devastated, laid waste, deserted; and (2) to be appalled or horrified, the reaction of people who see such ruin. The adjective here describes a place that is wrecked and empty, the kind of sight that makes passers-by shudder (Lev 26:32; Jer 18:16; Lam 1:4, 13).

Against the English

'Desolate' (KJV, WEB, YLT, BSB) is accurate but has softened in modern English toward 'bleak, lonely'. The Hebrew is stronger: physically wrecked, and emptied of worship by judgment.

How it drifted

In everyday English 'desolate' often describes a feeling (being sad and alone) or a remote landscape. The sense of violent destruction and horror is weaker.

Used elsewhere in the period

Leviticus 26:31–32: 'I will make your sanctuaries desolate (vahashimmoti et-miqdeshekhem) … and your enemies who live in it shall be appalled (veshamemu) at it.' Lamentations 5:18: 'Mount Zion, which lies desolate (sheshamem); jackals prowl over it.' Within Daniel the root keeps returning: 8:13 'the transgression that makes desolate'; 9:18 'our desolations'; 9:26 'desolations are decreed'; 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11 'the abomination that makes desolate' (shiqquts meshomem). Many scholars also see in shomem a pun on Baʿal Shamem ('Lord of Heaven'), the deity linked to Antiochus IV's altar in the temple.

From the study of Ezekiel 36:4

Range of meaning

Shamem means to be desolate, deserted, laid waste, and also to be appalled or horrified. The same root describes the emptied place and the stunned reaction of people who see it. Ḥorbah is a ruin or waste place, from ḥarav, "be dry, be laid waste."

Against the English

"Desolate ruins" (BSB) and "desolate wastes" (KJV, WEB, ESV, NASB) are accurate. English cannot carry shamem's second sense of horror at the sight, which a Hebrew hearer would feel.

Used elsewhere in the period

Leviticus 26 is the key background, a text Ezekiel draws on heavily: "I will make your cities a waste (ḥorbah) and bring your sanctuaries to desolation (shmm)… your land shall be a desolation (shemamah) and your cities a waste (ḥorbah)" (Lev 26:31, 33). Desolation is the vocabulary of covenant curse. In Ezekiel 35 the root runs through the judgment on Edom (35:3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15), and 36:3 continues it ("they made you desolate," shammot).