תָּמַם
ta.mam
to finish
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# תָּמַם (Tamam): Completion and Cessation The Hebrew verb תָּמַם (tamam) carries the fundamental meaning "to finish," appearing 63 times throughout the Hebrew Bible. This word describes the action of bringing something to an end or completion, whether concrete actions, time periods, or conditions. The frequency of its occurrence suggests it served as a standard term for expressing the concept of finality and closure in biblical Hebrew. The word encompasses both the process of ending and the state of being complete. Its 63 occurrences across biblical texts indicate it was used in diverse contexts—from finishing construction projects and consuming food to completing time periods and exhausting resources. This range demonstrates that תָּמַם functioned as a versatile term for any situation involving termination or exhaustion, whether the completion was anticipated or forced. The significance of this term lies in its linguistic utility for expressing temporal and material limits. In narratives and legal texts alike, tamam allowed writers to mark boundaries: when tasks concluded, when provisions ran out, or when periods elapsed. Understanding this word is essential for recognizing how biblical authors structured their accounts of events with clear endpoints and transitions between states.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
63 total occurrences across the text — showing 50
Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous? Or does it benefit him that you make your ways perfect?
Job 31:40let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
Psalms 9:6The enemy is overtaken by endless ruin. The very memory of the cities which you have overthrown has perished.
Psalms 18:25With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the perfect man, you will show yourself perfect.
Psalms 19:13Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I will be upright. I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression.
Psalms 64:6They plot injustice, saying, “We have made a perfect plan!” Surely man’s mind and heart are cunning.
Psalms 73:19How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.
Psalms 102:27But you are the same. Your years will have no end.
Psalms 104:35Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. Let the wicked be no more. Bless Yahweh, my soul. Praise Yah!
Isaiah 16:4Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land.
Isaiah 18:5For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.
Isaiah 33:1Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed, and who betray, but nobody betrayed you! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.
Jeremiah 1:3It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
Jeremiah 14:15Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine.
Jeremiah 24:10I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’ ”
Jeremiah 27:8“ ‘ “ ‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says Yahweh, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
Jeremiah 36:23When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.
Jeremiah 37:21Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
Jeremiah 44:12I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.
Jeremiah 44:12I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.
Jeremiah 44:18But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
Jeremiah 44:27Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until they are all gone.
Lamentations 3:22It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.
Lamentations 4:22The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion. He will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom. He will uncover your sins.
Ezekiel 22:15I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will consume your filthiness out of you.
Ezekiel 24:10Heap on the wood. Make the fire hot. Boil the meat well. Make the broth thick, and let the bones be burned.
Ezekiel 24:11Then set it empty on its coals, that it may be hot, and its bronze may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, that its rust may be consumed.
Ezekiel 47:12By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, will grow every tree for food, whose leaf won’t wither, neither will its fruit fail. It will produce new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary. Its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing.”
Daniel 8:23“In the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have come to the full, a king of fierce face, and understanding dark sentences, will stand up.
Daniel 9:24“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
Genesis 47:15When the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For our money fails.”
Genesis 47:18When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.
Genesis 47:18When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.
Numbers 14:33Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.
Leviticus 25:29“ ‘If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it has been sold. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption.
Leviticus 26:20Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
Numbers 14:35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”
Numbers 17:13Everyone who keeps approaching Yahweh’s tabernacle, dies! Will we all perish?”
Numbers 32:13Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he made them wander back and forth in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation who had done evil in Yahweh’s sight was consumed.
Deuteronomy 2:14The days in which we came from Kadesh Barnea until we had come over the brook Zered were thirty-eight years: until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the middle of the camp, as Yahweh swore to them.
Deuteronomy 2:15Moreover Yahweh’s hand was against them, to destroy them from the middle of the camp, until they were consumed.
Deuteronomy 2:16So, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people,
Joshua 10:20When Joshua and the children of Israel had finished killing them with a very great slaughter until they were consumed, and the remnant which remained of them had entered into the fortified cities,
Deuteronomy 31:24When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,
Deuteronomy 31:30Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.
Deuteronomy 34:8The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.
Joshua 3:16the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people passed over near Jericho.
Joshua 3:17The priests who bore the ark of Yahweh’s covenant stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the nation had passed completely over the Jordan.
Joshua 4:1When all the nation had completely crossed over the Jordan, Yahweh spoke to Joshua, saying,
Joshua 4:10For the priests who bore the ark stood in the middle of the Jordan until everything was finished that Yahweh commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua; and the people hurried and passed over.