Likeness or resemblance requires identifying what is compared and how the passage qualifies the description. Genesis speaks of humanity made in God's likeness and later describes Adam's son in his likeness and image.
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Full entry for דְּמוּת (H1823) · Open the biblical lexicon
Likeness or resemblance requires identifying what is compared and how the passage qualifies the description. Genesis speaks of humanity made in God's likeness and later describes Adam's son in his likeness and image.
The BSB source-word alignment has 25 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include form (2), in His own likeness (2), the likeness (2), - (1), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (16), Genesis (3), Isaiah (2), 2 Chronicles (1).
Likeness or resemblance requires identifying what is compared and how the passage qualifies the description. Genesis speaks of humanity made in God's likeness and later describes Adam's son in his likeness and image. Ezekiel uses likeness language in a vision, including the human-like appearance above the throne. Isaiah questions what likeness could be set beside God, while Kings records a copied altar pattern brought from Damascus.
These uses do not reduce human dignity to one faculty, make people divine or turn every visionary resemblance into a complete description of God. Read the actual comparison and its limits. A congregation can honor people through the creation statement while refusing to rank dignity by ability, appearance or social position. It should also distinguish a copied design from the creation and vision settings rather than assume that resemblance means approval.
Humanity's creation, Adam's son, qualified visionary description, Isaiah's question and an altar pattern use likeness differently. Comparison requires its stated referents and cannot rank people through one feature.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
God speaks of making humanity in His image and likeness within the creation account and stated rule over creatures.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness.
The genealogy recalls God creating man in His likeness before naming male and female and their blessing.
When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth.
Adam fathers Seth in his likeness and image within the named genealogy rather than a new divine identity claim.
Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire, and on the throne high above was a figure like that of a man.
The vision uses qualified likeness and appearance language for the throne and the human-like figure above it.
To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?
Isaiah asks what likeness could be compared with God within the contrast with a crafted idol.
Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria. On seeing the altar in Damascus, King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest a model of the altar and complete plans for its construction.
Ahaz sends the priest a model and detailed pattern of the Damascus altar for copying in the narrated account.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Likeness that bridges abstract similarity and concrete form; critical for humanity's theological status as image-bearer of God.
Likeness that bridges abstract similarity and concrete form; critical for humanity's theological status as image-bearer of God.
resemblance; concretely, model, shape; adverbially, like BDB: likeness Usage: fashion, like (-ness, as), manner, similitude.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 25 lexical occurrence verses.
דְּמוּת is built from this root:
A likeness is not an identity without qualification. Genesis places humanity in God's creation and repeats that statement before its male-and-female naming and blessing. Adam's fathering of Seth uses likeness and image in the genealogy's own relationship. Ezekiel repeatedly qualifies the vision through appearance and likeness, so a teacher should preserve those words instead of pretending to give a complete physical description of God.
Isaiah's question challenges comparison with a crafted image, and Kings' copied altar is a design in a narrated account rather than an automatic object of approval. A congregation can affirm people's dignity through the creation statement without ranking them by intellect, strength, bodily appearance or usefulness. It must not identify a single faculty as the full meaning of likeness or decide that people with different abilities possess less of it.
James' warning about cursing people deserves attention as its own canonical application rather than an invented diagnostic scale.
Gen.5.1
The noun's likeness and pattern range requires its actual construction and referent. Twenty-five BSB tokens in twenty-two verses remain distinct from canonical twenty-five; artifact transliteration is preserved and a shared comparison word cannot define one human faculty as the whole divine likeness.
James 3:1-12 confronts the tongue's use in blessing God and cursing people made in God's likeness, while warning teachers and exposing the inconsistency. This is a canonical creation-likeness comparison, not an occurrence of the Hebrew noun or a scale ranking people by abilities, appearance or membership in a favored group.