We all know this root אמן. It appears dozens of times in Tanach in words like אמונה and נאמן. It has meanings related to “trust, believe, faith.” Also, the word אמן (“amen”) appears 30 times in Tanach and we recite it throughout our liturgy. It serves as an affirmation of what preceded it, i.e., we have faith in what was just said.

One time in Tanach—at Song of Songs 7:2—אמן (“aman”) means “craftsman.” This meaning—used widely in modern Hebrew—is not related to the “trust/believe” meaning. Rather, the “craftsman” meaning comes from Akkadian. (But I did see one source that did not realize this and translated the אמן of Song of Songs as a “dependable worker!”) There is also a third category of words that have the root אמן. These are words related to bringing up children.

Here are the verses with these words:

Esther 2:7: “He (Mordechai) was ‘omen’ to Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle’s daughter because she had no father nor mother … ” See similarly in Esther 2:20.

Samuel 4:4: Regarding Mefiboshet, whose age is given as five: “‘Omanto’ took him up and fled, and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell and became lame … ”

Kings II, 10:1: “Achav had 70 ‘banim’ (descendants) in Shomron. Yehu wrote letters and sent them to Shomron … to the elders, and to the ‘omenim’ of Achav … ”

In the above verse, the ‘omenim’ are implied to be the ones who had the responsibility for bringing up those 70 descendants. They are mentioned again briefly at Kings II, 10:5.

Isaiah 49:23: “Kings will be ‘omnayich’ and their queens your nursing mothers.” The context is the restoration of exiled Israel in the future. The reference is to kings and queens of gentile nations.

Isaiah 60:4: “Your sons will come from afar, your daughters ‘teiamanah’ (will be carried by their ‘omenim’ or ‘omenot’) …” (See Daat Mikra: “The daughters need to be carried due to the long distance.”)

Ruth 4:16: “Naomi took the child and set it in her bosom and became to him an ‘omenet.’”

Eichah 4:5: “Those who feasted on dainties lie devastated in the streets; ‘haemunim’ (those brought up) in scarlet embrace dunghills.”

Numbers 11:11-14: “Overwhelmed by the Israelites’ demands, Moses cries out to God, ‘Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all these people upon me? Did I conceive all these people, did I give birth to them, that You should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom as ‘haomen’ carries an infant,” to the land that You have promised … I cannot carry all these people by myself … ’”

I previously wrote about the root אמן in my “Links to Our Legacy” (2021), page 102-03.There I took the position that the fundamental meaning of the root אמן was “trust,” and that the “omen” and “omenet” were individuals who were trusted with caring for the child. Such a view is expressed in “Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament,” volume 1, page 294, and by many others. But more recently, I read Deena Aranoff’s article: “The Biblical Root ‘mn: Retrieval of a Term and Its Household Context,” in “Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination” (2017). This article has convinced me that “trust” is not a concrete enough meaning to be the origin of the root. Rather—as Aranoff explains—the origin of the root was probably in the “childrearing” context.

Aranoff writes: “The defining aspect of child-rearing—its requisite constancy—supplied the primary experience from which the abstract notion of fidelity was derived.” She also points to the closeness of the letters אמן to that fundamental word, אם. This too, suggests that the word expanded from a “mother-related” meaning. Aranoff explains that a Reverend Professor Thomas Torrance published something in 1956, in which he suggested that the constancy and steadfastness of a parent to the child lurks behind the Tanach’s conception of “faithfulness.” But Semitic scholar James Barr—in an important work from 1961—rejected this connection. Barr felt that this etymology was symptomatic of a regrettable tendency among Christian theologians to view the Hebrew Bible as overly concrete and primitive. Aranoff agrees that Barr’s effort to expose a bias in biblical scholarship was laudable, but argues that in this case, Barr was likely wrong.

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So what precisely did this root אמן mean in the “child-rearing” context? Could it have originally been a verb for “nurse” (suckle)? There is a longstanding tradition of understanding it this way, starting with the Greek translation of Numbers 11:12, in the third-century BCE. In modern times, the Hertz Pentateuch at the top—utilizing the 1917 Jewish Publication Society of America translation—has “nursing-father” here, with no correction by Rabbi Hertz below. More recently, the ArtScroll Stone Chumash translates our word at 11:12 with the word “nurse.” “Omen,” of course is masculine, unlike “omenet.” This makes the “nurse” translation very difficult.

Daniel Klein extensively discusses the meaning of the root אמן in the “child-rearing” context in a recent article in the “Jewish Bible Quarterly.”

Here are some of the points he makes:

Close reading of the context in the Numbers verse indicates that Moses’ overriding concern was his inability to “carry” the Israelites. Consequently, the person whose role he feels he is being required to assume, the “omen,” must be one who was characteristically entrusted with the task of carrying the child.

“Carrying” is also found in the context of Isaiah 60:4.

Originally, a man and his wife may have functioned together as an efficient team to help the parents of a child (or parents of multiple children). The wife was the wet-nurse, while her husband fulfilled other essential tasks, such as carrying the child wherever they went, and perhaps teaching the child some early lessons.

An ancient team may be hinted at at Isaiah 49:23, and its vision of the ideal future.

Several commentators (Abravanel, Radak and Metzudat Tzion) understand “omnayich” in this verse as the equivalent of “megaddelayich” (those who bring you up). The latter two commentators cite Numbers 11:12, indicating that they understand “omen” in that verse in the same sense.

The word “omen” is, perhaps, best translated as “a child’s primary male caregiver.” Mordechai served as Esther’s primary male caregiver. Foreign kings (“omnayich”) would provide Israel’s main caregiving and support in the ideal future. Naomi assumed the principal female care of her long-awaited grandson as his “omenet.” In none of these cases do we have to claim that the job description included nursing.

Klein does not say this explicitly, but I would conclude that the original concrete meaning of the verb was “caring closely for a child.” This verb אמן probably arose as an expansion from the original אם (mother) word.

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There is one more אמן verse that I did not mention above, Proverbs 8:30. Much of the Aranoff article deals with how to interpret the unusual word אמון in this verse. I thank Daniel Klein for referring me to his article in the “Jewish Bible Quarterly,” 51:3 (2023): “Moses Our Nursemaid? Toward a Proper Understanding of ‘Omen’ in Numbers 11:12.” There is much more interesting material there.

Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected].

P.S. The word “rearing” derives from a Middle English word “reren” which meant “to raise.” It has nothing to do with the other meaning of “rear.”