Properly, to build up or support ; to foster as a parent or nurse; figuratively to render (or be ) firm or faithful, to trust or believe, to be permanent or quiet; morally to be true or certain;
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The Hebrew verb אָמַן (ʾāman) gathers several related ideas around firmness, reliability, faithfulness, and believing response, but its verbal form and context determine which idea is active. In the Niphal stem, a person or thing may be shown as established, reliable, enduring, or faithful.
Reader summary
Full entry for אָמַן (H539) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew verb אָמַן (ʾāman) gathers several related ideas around firmness, reliability, faithfulness, and believing response, but its verbal form and context determine which idea is active. In the Niphal stem, a person or thing may be shown as established, reliable, enduring, or faithful.
The BSB source-word alignment has 105 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include believe (17), trust (6), the faithful (4), believed (3), a faithful (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 15:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (15), Psalms (15), Job (10), Exodus (8).
This entry includes 3 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
The Hebrew verb אָמַן (ʾāman) gathers several related ideas around firmness, reliability, faithfulness, and believing response, but its verbal form and context determine which idea is active. In the Niphal stem, a person or thing may be shown as established, reliable, enduring, or faithful. Deuteronomy 7:9 calls the Lord “the faithful God,” Numbers 12:7 describes Moses as faithful in God’s house, and 1 Samuel 2:35 speaks of a faithful priest and an enduring house. These uses describe a quality or condition of dependability rather than the inward act of believing.
In the Hiphil stem, the verb often describes believing or treating a word, messenger, or person as trustworthy. Abram believed the Lord in Genesis 15:6. Israel believed after hearing that God had attended to their affliction in Exodus 4:31, and after seeing His power at the sea in Exodus 14:31. The Ninevites believed God’s warning in Jonah 3:5 and responded publicly. The response varies with the passage, so the verb should not be reduced to either bare mental agreement or one uniform account of saving faith.
Isaiah 7:9 and 2 Chronicles 20:20 use more than one form of the root in compact wordplay. They relate believing or trusting to being firm or upheld. The wordplay is meaningful because the forms share a root, yet the distinct stems still perform different grammatical work. Responsible teaching can show the relationship without assigning the same English gloss to every occurrence.
Genesis 15:6 becomes especially important when the New Testament cites it in Romans and Galatians. That canonical development is essential for Christian theology, but it should follow careful reading of Abram, God’s promise, and the covenant scene. H539 itself does not contain the whole doctrine of justification, nor does its root make emotional certainty the measure of faith. The passages direct attention toward the reliability of God and His word, the response of those who hear, and the faithful character expected of entrusted servants.
The forms of ʾāman describe believing a report or promise, recognizing someone as reliable, being established, and proving faithful in an entrusted role. Narrative, covenant, royal, prophetic, and penitential settings display related firmness without collapsing grammatical distinctions.
Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
Abram responds to the Lord and His promise within the unfolding covenant narrative, and the verse later receives explicit apostolic interpretation.
And they believed. And when they heard that the Lord had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.
Israel’s believing response follows the announcement of divine attention and leads into embodied worship before deliverance from Egypt is complete.
When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.
The narrator connects witnessed deliverance with Israel’s response toward the Lord and the servant He appointed.
But this is not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house.
The Niphal participle describes Moses as dependable within an entrusted household role rather than depicting an act of belief.
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Faithfulness characterizes God in relation to covenant love and keeping, giving Israel a revealed ground for confidence and obedience.
Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest. He will do whatever is in My heart and mind. And I will build for him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed one for all time.
Two occurrences describe a reliable priest and an established house, showing related senses operating within one promise.
Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”
Hiphil imperatives and a Niphal result create a deliberate relationship between trusting the Lord and being upheld in crisis.
The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all.’”
Isaiah’s compact wordplay connects response to God’s word with stability while retaining distinct verbal forms and immediate political pressure.
And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.
The Ninevites treat the warning as credible, and the narrative immediately depicts communal actions that correspond to their response.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Trust rooted in firm support; to believe is to lean on what is stable and foundational, like a nurse sustains a child.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 108 lexical occurrence verses.
אָמַן is built from this root:
Faithfulness is essential to maintaining relationships and community trust.Isaiah 1:21-31
Leadership in covenant restoration depends on proven reliability grounded in reverence for God.Isaiah 7:1-9
The city once characterized by covenant loyalty has abandoned that identity, intensifying the seriousness of her betrayal.Nehemiah 7:1-4
The wordplay highlights that stability depends on trust in the Lord; without faith there is no firmness.Proverbs 11:13
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
ʾĀman rewards grammatical patience. Genesis 15:6 uses a form commonly translated “believed,” while Numbers 12:7 uses the root to describe Moses as faithful. Deuteronomy 7:9 describes God as faithful, and Isaiah 7:9 uses related forms to connect faith and stability. These are not competing definitions, nor are they interchangeable slogans. Together they show a family of firmness and reliability expressed through different verbal constructions.
Christian teaching rightly gives Genesis 15:6 a central place because the apostles cite it when explaining justification, but the lexical entry must not pretend that every H539 occurrence carries that full doctrinal argument. The pastoral center is the dependable God who speaks and acts, the specific word or witness presented in context, and the human response that may include worship, repentance, endurance, or faithful service.
Gen.15.6
The Hiphil frequently carries the believing or trusting sense, while the Niphal commonly describes being firm, established, confirmed, or faithful. These patterns guide interpretation, but syntax, participants, and literary context must still decide the force of each occurrence.
Romans 4 and Galatians 3 explicitly cite Genesis 15:6, while Hebrews 3 recalls Moses’ faithfulness in God’s house. These inspired connections develop particular passages; they do not authorize treating every form of H539 as an identical technical term for New Testament faith.