The Hebrew Word hmmd and the Root d-m-m I (“To Be Silent”) (*) The Hebrew word hmmd has been the topic of scholarly interest for many years, not only due to the important passages in which it is found (especially the theophany Elijah experiences at Horeb), but also due to its ambiguous etymology and the complex nuances and semantic relationships between the various roots containing daleth and mem. Although recent dictionaries and studies of the word have proposed defining it as “sighing” or “whisper” and deriving it from the root d-m- m II associated with mourning and/or moaning, the present study demonstrates that the word actually denotes “silence, quiet” (or the absence of loud sound and motion) and should be derived from the root d-m-m I associated with silence. Evidence for this definition and etymology emerges from a close study of the biblical passages containing hmmd, the usages of semantically similar Hebrew and Aramaic words in early rabbinic and Christian texts, and finally a consideration of how hmmd is used among the Dead Sea Scrolls. 1. History of the Problem The conventional understanding of the word hmmd at the beginning of the 20th century, as represented in BDB, was that it denoted “whisper” and derived from the geminate root d-m-m (listed in BDB as d-m-m I), whose basic notion is translated “to be or grow dumb, silent, still”. However, the difficulty of defining hmmd is intimated in BDB’s presentation: “(silence) whisper” (1). The problem would seem to be that (*) I thank the editors and readers of the present article for their helpful suggestions regarding the article’s structure and organization. What infelicities of content and form remain are attributable to me. (1) This two-fold translation reflects the word’s interpretation in the 19th- century. Gesenius’s Thesaurus defines the word as “silentium”, W. GESENIUS, Thesaurus philologicus linguae Hebraeae et Chaldeae Veteris Testamenti (Leipzig 1835-1853) s.v. Robinson’s translation reflects most of the entry: “silence, stillness, e.g., of the winds, a calm Ps 107,29 . . . a voice of stillness, i.e. still gentle, 1 K. 19,12. So poet. by Hendiadys, Job 4,16 . . . I hear stillness and a voice i.e. a still voice, light whisper. Sept. and Vulg. lenis aura, gentle breeze”, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament including the Biblical Chaldee. From the Latin of William Gesenius (trans. E. ROBINSON) (Boston