The Hebrew Word hmmd and the Root d-m-m I 387 must mean “the absence of noise or agitated motion” (1QHa XIV, 23 and 1QIsaa XXXIX, 23 [Isa 47,5]). In a third passage, the most likely meaning is also absence of agitated motion (1QHa XIII, 18). In a fourth passage, the word is probably the result of a scribal slip, a daleth having been written for a resh (1QIsaa XXVII, 3 [Isa 33,3]). The occurrences of the word in 4Q401 16, 2 = 4Q402 9, 3, and in 4Q417 2 I, 3 can all be explained through the meaning “absence of noise or agitated motion”. The occurrence of the word in five passages from the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q405 19ABCD, 7; 4Q405 20-21-22 II, 7, 8, 12, 13) perhaps provides evidence that the word could also be construed as “whisper”, but the Songs contains such convoluted syntax and sense that it is difficult to use these texts to help define hmmd; this is all the more true since most of them seem to be (in part at least) interpreting a biblical verse (1 Kgs 19,12) that includes hmmd and whose interpretation itself is disputed. Nevertheless, these passages, like the others, can be construed in such a way as to infer the meaning “absence of noise or agitated motion” for hmmd. * ** The word hmmd denotes “silence, quiet” in the Bible and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although the word appears in association with words that indicate sound or speech in Job 4,16 and in 1Kgs 19,12, it is not necessary to suggest that it had alternative meanings like “mutter, whisper,” nor is it necessary to postulate that it derives from a root associated with sound production like d-m-m II (“to mourn, moan”). Words semantically similar to hmmd are found in post-biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac texts modifying words for speech and sound. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the word hmmd appears in contexts where it can only denote “silence, quiet”. This meaning makes sense of the word’s usage in all these texts, but also reflects how this word was understood in later Jewish tradition, especially in the Targums where hmmd is translated with words that clearly denote the absence of sound or noise (41). For all these reasons, it is better to define (41) On the use of hmmd in later rabbinic writings, see L.H. SCHIFFMAN, “Merkavah Speculation at Qumran: The 4QSerekh Shirot ‘Olat ha-Shabbat”, Mystics, Philosophers, and Politicians. Essays in Jewish Intellectual History in Honor of Alexander Altmann (eds. J. REINHARZ – D. SWETSCHINSKI) (Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5; Durham 1982) 36-37.