Almah

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Almah (???????? 'alm?h, plural: '?l?m?? ?????????) is a Hebrew word for a maiden or woman of childbearing age who may be unmarried or married. It does not, in and of itself, indicate whether she is a virgin, for which a different Hebrew word betulah is used. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament renders both Hebrew words almah and betulah as the same Greek word parthenos. The term occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible.

Video Almah

Definitions and etymology

The masculine equivalent of almah is elem ("???" in Arabic ghelam ????) meaning "youth" or "young man of the age of puberty". Feminizing these terms would result in "young woman" or "young woman of the age of puberty". Gesenius defines the word as a "girl of marriageable age". In modern Hebrew almah means a young woman or girl, a young or unmarried woman.

The notion of marriageability is typically part of the definition of almah. In the ancient Near East girls had value as potential wives and bearers of children. Carolyn S. Leeb points out: "A wife, who came into her husband's household as an outsider, contributed her labor and her fertility. Her task was to build up the bet 'ab by bearing children, particularly sons". This same sense of marriageability does not accrue to the masculine elem even though they also have entered puberty, but it does apply to "bachur" or "young warrior", when boys have matured to the point of being able to support a new household.

"Almah" was one of a list of sequential "terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life". (spellings per Gesenius translated to English):

yeled (??????) or yaldah (????) - boy/girl (kids).
"Tinok" ("?????) - suckling baby boy. Derives from the words "yonek or yanak (???????) which means suckle.
olal (??????) - a toddler, a suckling who also eats food. Translated as "young child" in Lamentations 4:4 (KJV).
gamul (???????) - weaned child (gamal).
taph (???) - young child, one who still clings to mother. Derived from the word for brisk, small, tripping steps of young children.
elem (??????) or almah (???????) - firm and strong child. (Between five-seven years of age and thirteen years of age.)
na'ar (??????) or na'arah (???????) - "independent or free child" (from a root meaning "to shake off"). Aged 13+. Also "handmaid", "servant" or just "girl". In modern hebrew it is a commonly used in the meaning of "teenage boy" and "teenage girl", respectively, and the root is also used to for similar terms such as "youth", ("Noar", ??????) and teen spirit ("Ruach Neurim", ??? ??????).

Maps Almah

Bible usage

The meaning of almah is most often determined by referring to its uses in the Bible. However, there are only nine passages (two of them psalm headings) that use this term (and only two more use the masculine form ?????? elem). This results in a very small number of examples from which we may extract a definition. This small number is further reduced because only a few of these verses contain clear and unambiguous meanings. These few instances do not necessarily clarify the meaning of almah in the remaining passages. The problem is further compounded when one considers that these various texts were recorded by different authors living centuries apart. Languages tend to evolve over time and ancient Hebrew was no different.

A servant of Abraham tells Laban, Rebecca's brother, how he selected her. He prayed to the Lord that if an almah came to the well and he requested a drink of water from her, that should she then provide him with that drink and also water his camels; he would take that as a sign that she was to be the wife of Isaac.(Genesis 24:43) Rebecca, a young, unmarried girl and "a virgin whom no man had known" (Genesis 24:16) turned out to be that almah. When the servant's prayer is first related, in Genesis 24:12-14, the word almah is not used.
Miriam, referred to as an almah in Exodus 2:8, is entrusted to observe her baby brother Moses as he is set adrift on the River Nile; after he is rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, Miriam takes thoughtful action by offering to bring the baby to a Hebrew nurse maid (their mother).
In 1 Chronicles 15:20 and Psalm 46 heading a psalm is to be played "on alamot". The musical meaning of this phrase has become lost with time: it may mean a feminine manner of singing or playing, such as a girls choir, or an instrument made in the city of "Alameth".
In a victory parade in Psalm 68:25, the participants are listed in order of appearance: 1) the singers; 2) the musicians; and 3) the alamot playing cymbals or tambourines.
The Song of Songs 1:3 contains a poetic chant of praise to a man, declaring that all the alamot adore him. In verse 6:8 a girl is favorably compared to 60 queens (wives of the king), 80 concubines, and numberless alamot.
In Proverbs 30:19, a difference between the Hebrew texts and the Greek Septuagint leads to divergent interpretations. The focus of the text is consternation over an adulterous wife. The author compares this adulterous wife's acts to things he claims are hard to understand: a bird flying in air, the movement of a snake over a rock, navigation of a ship through the sea and how a man is with an almah (the Septuagint reads "and the way of a man in his youth" instead).
The verses surrounding Isaiah 7:14 tell how Ahaz, the king of Judah, is told of a sign to be given in demonstration that the prophet's promise of God's protection is a true one. The sign is that an almah will give birth to a son who will still be very young when Judah's enemies will be destroyed. Most Christians identify the almah of this prophecy with the Virgin Mary. In Isaiah 7, the almah is already pregnant, and modern Jewish translators have therefore rendered almah here as "young woman". The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, which was completed in the late 2nd century BCE, translated almah into Greek as ???????? (parthenos), which generally means "virgin". For example, the Hebrew word "betulah" for "virgin" is translated as "parthenon" in Exodus 22:16 in the Septuagint. Greek parthenos had the wider meaning of "girl," allowing the Septuagint to describe Dinah as a parthenos even after she has been raped and hence no longer a virgin.