עָמַד
a.mad
to stand: stand
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# The Hebrew Word עָמַד (amad): Standing and Position The Hebrew verb עָמַד (amad) appears 452 times throughout the biblical text, making it one of the most frequently used action words in Hebrew scripture. Its core meaning centers on the physical act of standing—assuming an upright position. This foundational sense provides the semantic anchor from which the word's broader applications emerge. Beyond mere physical posture, the frequency of this word's occurrence suggests that "standing" carried conceptual weight in biblical thought. The verb encompasses not only the initial action of rising to stand, but also the state of remaining in a standing position. This distinction between action and state—between the moment of standing up and the condition of being positioned upright—allows the word to function across various contexts where position, stability, or presence matters. The verb's prevalence in the biblical corpus indicates that authors drew regularly on this image to convey ideas of positioning, presence, or endurance. With 452 biblical occurrences, עָמַד clearly served biblical writers as a versatile tool for describing both literal physical stances and figurative states of being or condition. Its high frequency across such a large textual corpus demonstrates that standing—as both action and state—formed a conceptually important framework in ancient Hebrew expression. The word likely retained this dual capacity throughout biblical literature, functioning simultaneously at literal and metaphorical levels.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
452 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in Yahweh’s house, before the new court;
2 Chronicles 20:9‘If evil comes on us—the sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this house, and before you (for your name is in this house), and cry to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’
2 Chronicles 20:13All Judah stood before Yahweh, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
2 Chronicles 20:17You will not need to fight this battle. Set yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of Yahweh with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Don’t be afraid, nor be dismayed. Go out against them tomorrow, for Yahweh is with you.’ ”
2 Chronicles 20:20They rose early in the morning, and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in Yahweh your God, so you will be established! Believe his prophets, so you will prosper.”
2 Chronicles 23:13Then she looked, and, behold, the king stood by his pillar at the entrance, and the captains and the trumpets by the king. All the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets. The singers also played musical instruments, and led the singing of praise. Then Athaliah tore her clothes, and said, “Treason! treason!”
2 Chronicles 23:19He set the gatekeepers at the gates of Yahweh’s house, that no one who was unclean in anything should enter in.
2 Chronicles 24:13So the workmen worked, and the work of repairing went forward in their hands. They set up God’s house as it was designed, and strengthened it.
2 Chronicles 24:20The Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people, and said to them, “God says, ‘Why do you disobey Yahweh’s commandments, so that you can’t prosper? Because you have forsaken Yahweh, he has also forsaken you.’ ”
Nehemiah 4:9But we made our prayer to our God, and set a watch against them day and night because of them.
2 Chronicles 25:5Moreover Amaziah gathered Judah together, and ordered them according to their fathers’ houses, under captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, even all Judah and Benjamin. He counted them from twenty years old and upward, and found that there were three hundred thousand chosen men, able to go out to war, who could handle spear and shield.
2 Chronicles 25:14Now after Amaziah had come from the slaughter of the Edomites, he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense to them.
2 Chronicles 26:18They resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. It will not be for your honor from Yahweh God.”
2 Chronicles 29:11My sons, don’t be negligent now; for Yahweh has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers, and burn incense.”
2 Chronicles 29:25He set the Levites in Yahweh’s house with cymbals, with stringed instruments, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet; for the commandment was from Yahweh by his prophets.
2 Chronicles 29:26The Levites stood with David’s instruments, and the priests with the trumpets.
2 Chronicles 30:16They stood in their place after their order, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood which they received of the hand of the Levites.
2 Chronicles 33:19His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set up the Asherah poles and the engraved images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.
Nehemiah 13:19It came to pass that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and commanded that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. I set some of my servants over the gates, so that no burden should be brought in on the Sabbath day.
2 Chronicles 34:31The king stood in his place, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.
2 Chronicles 34:32He caused all who were found in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand. The inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
2 Chronicles 35:5Stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the fathers’ houses of your brothers the children of the people, and let there be for each a portion of a fathers’ house of the Levites.
2 Chronicles 35:10So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place, and the Levites by their divisions, according to the king’s commandment.
Ezra 2:68Some of the heads of fathers’ households, when they came to Yahweh’s house which is in Jerusalem, offered willingly for God’s house to set it up in its place.
Ezra 9:15Yahweh, the God of Israel, you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guiltiness; for no one can stand before you because of this.”
Ezra 10:13But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand outside. This is not a work of one day or two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.
Ezra 10:14Now let our princes be appointed for all the assembly, and let all those who are in our cities who have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and its judges, until the fierce wrath of our God is turned from us, until this matter is resolved.”
Ezra 10:15Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this; and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.
Nehemiah 3:1Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the sheep gate. They sanctified it, and set up its doors. They sanctified it even to the tower of Hammeah, to the tower of Hananel.
Nehemiah 3:3The sons of Hassenaah built the fish gate. They laid its beams, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
Nehemiah 3:6Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the old gate. They laid its beams, and set up its doors, and its bolts, and its bars.
Nehemiah 3:13Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the valley gate. They built it, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and one thousand cubits of the wall to the dung gate.
Nehemiah 3:14Malchijah the son of Rechab, the ruler of the district of Beth Haccherem repaired the dung gate. He built it, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
Nehemiah 3:15Shallun the son of Colhozeh, the ruler of the district of Mizpah repaired the spring gate. He built it, and covered it, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king’s garden, even to the stairs that go down from David’s city.
Nehemiah 6:1Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and to the rest of our enemies, that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates)
Nehemiah 6:7You have also appointed prophets to proclaim of you at Jerusalem, saying, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now it will be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let’s take counsel together.”
Nehemiah 7:1Now when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed,
Nehemiah 8:4Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.
Nehemiah 8:4Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.
Nehemiah 8:5Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people (for he was above all the people), and when he opened it, all the people stood up.
Nehemiah 9:2The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
Nehemiah 12:39and above the gate of Ephraim, and by the old gate, and by the fish gate, and the tower of Hananel, and the tower of Hammeah, even to the sheep gate: and they stood still in the gate of the guard.
Nehemiah 12:40So the two companies of those who gave thanks in God’s house stood, and I, and the half of the rulers with me;
Nehemiah 13:11Then I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is God’s house forsaken?” I gathered them together, and set them in their place.
Ezekiel 46:2The prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate outside, and shall stand by the post of the gate; and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate. Then he shall go out; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.
Esther 3:4Now it came to pass, when they spoke daily to him, and he didn’t listen to them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s reason would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew.
Esther 5:1Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house.
Esther 5:2When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.
Esther 6:5The king’s servants said to him, “Behold, Haman stands in the court.” The king said, “Let him come in.”
Esther 7:7The king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden. Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king.