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Bible Dictionaries
Consumed, to Be
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Verb.
Tâmam (תָּמַם, Strong's #8552), “to be complete, finished, perfect, spent, sound, used up, have integrity.” Found in both ancient and modern Hebrew, this word also exists in ancient Ugaritic. Tâmam is found approximately 60 times in the Hebrew Old Testament in its verbal forms.
The basic meaning of this word is that of “being complete” or “finished,” with nothing else expected or intended. When it was said that the temple was “finished” (1 Kings 6:22), this meant that the temple was “complete,” with nothing else to add. Similarly, when the notation is made in Job 31:40, “The words of Job are ended [finished],” this indicates that the cycle of Job’s speeches is “complete.” Tâmam is sometimes used to express the fact that something is “completed” or “finished” with regard to its supply. Thus, money that is all spent is “finished” or “exhausted” (Gen. 47:15, 18). Jeremiah was given bread daily until “all the bread in the city [was] spent [exhausted]” (Jer. 37:21). When a people came “to a full end” (Num. 14:35, RSV), it meant that they were “consumed” or “completely destroyed.” To “consume” the filthiness out of the people (Ezek. 22:15) meant “to destroy it” or “to make an end of it.”
Tâmam sometimes expresses moral and ethical “soundness”: “Then shall I be upright” (Ps. 19:13), says the psalmist, when God helps him to keep God’s Law.
B. Adjective.
Tâm (תָּם, Strong's #8535), “perfect.” When the adjectival form tâm is used to describe Job (1:1), the meaning is not that he was really “perfect” in the ultimate sense, but rather that he was “blameless” (RSV) or “had integrity.”
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Consumed, to Be'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/c/consumed-to-be.html. 1940.
