H1818 — דָּם (dâm)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H1818
Original: דָּם
Transliteration: dâm
Pronunciation: dawm
Part of Speech: Masculine noun
Root: From a root (compare H1826 dâmam — to be dumb/still); blood as that which when shed causes death
Occurrences: 295 unique verses (391 tokens) in 28 books
First Occurrence: Gen 4:10 — "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

From (compare H1826); blood (as that which when shed causes death) of man or an animal; by analogy, the juice of the grape; figuratively (especially in the plural) bloodshed (i.e. drops of blood): —blood(-y, -guiltiness), (-thirsty), innocent.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
blood / the blood / of blood / with blood (various)	~270	~92%
bloody / the bloody	13	4.4%
bloodguiltiness	1	0.3%
innocent (blood)	implied	—

All uses translate דָּם. The variation is prepositional or possessive phrasing in the Hebrew.

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Leviticus	66	7.7
Joel	4	5.5
Habakkuk	3	5.4
Ezekiel	47	3.7
Jonah	1	2.1
Nahum	1	2.1
Hosea	4	2.0
Zephaniah	1	1.9
Micah	2	1.9
Exodus	22	1.8
Deuteronomy	17	1.8
2 Samuel	11	1.6
2 Kings	9	1.3
Lamentations	2	1.3
1 Kings	10	1.2
Isaiah	14	1.1
1 Samuel	8	1.0
Proverbs	8	0.9
Zechariah	2	0.9
Numbers	10	0.8
Psalms	19	0.8
Genesis	10	0.7
Jeremiah	9	0.7
2 Chronicles	5	0.6
Joshua	4	0.6
1 Chronicles	3	0.3
Job	2	0.2
Judges	1	0.2

Pattern: Overwhelmingly concentrated in the priestly and legal material (Leviticus highest by far at 7.7/100v). Strong presence in Ezekiel (prophetic condemnation of bloodshed) and the Minor Prophets. Notably absent from wisdom literature beyond Proverbs, and sparse in narrative texts relative to its cultic weight. The Psalms uses are mostly judicial (innocent blood, blood of servants).

Semantic Categories¶

1. Blood of Sacrifice — Cultic / Priestly Use¶

The dominant usage in Leviticus and ritual texts: blood received, sprinkled, poured at the altar.

Lev 1:5 — "the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar"
Lev 17:11 — "the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul"
Exo 29:16 — "thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar"
Num 19:4 — "Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle"

2. Blood as the Life-Force¶

The explicit equation: dam = life. Foundation of the blood prohibition.

Gen 9:4 — "flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat"
Lev 17:14 — "the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off"
Deut 12:23 — "the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh"
Deut 12:16 — "ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water"

3. Murder / Bloodshed / Violence¶

dâm used for the act of killing and its consequences; often with shaphak (pour/shed).

Gen 4:10 — "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground"
Num 35:33 — "blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein"
Isa 1:15 — "your hands are full of blood"
Jer 7:6 — "shed not innocent blood in this place"

4. Blood Guilt — Responsibility for Death¶

"Blood upon your head/hands" — the formula for moral culpability.

Josh 2:19 — "his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless"
2 Sam 1:16 — "thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee"
Ezek 3:18 — "his blood will I require at thine hand"
Ezek 33:6 — "his blood will I require at the watchman's hand"

5. Innocent Blood — Prophetic Indictment¶

Shedding innocent blood as covenant violation; major theme in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.

Jer 2:34 — "in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents"
Lam 4:13 — "for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just"
Prov 1:16 — "their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood"
Ezek 22:4 — "thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed"

6. Covenant Blood¶

Blood as the ratifying substance of covenant relationship.

Zech 9:11 — "as for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit"
Exo 24:8 — "Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant"

7. Eschatological / Cosmic Blood¶

Blood as a sign of divine judgment; Joel's blood moon carried into NT.

Joel 2:30–31 — "blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD"
Micah 3:10 — "they build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity"
Hab 2:12 — "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
שָׁפַךְ (shâphak)	H8210	50x	"shed blood" — pour out blood in violence
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbêach)	H4196	36x	blood applied to/on the altar
נָתַן (nâthan)	H5414	36x	"give/apply the blood" — priestly rite
לָקַח (lâqach)	H3947	36x	"take the blood" — priestly reception
אָכַל (ʼâkal)	H398	29x	"not eat the blood" — the prohibition
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh)	H5315	28x	"blood is the nephesh" / "blood of the soul"
כֹּהֵן (kôhên)	H3548	28x	priest as agent of blood rites
מוּת (mûwth)	H4191	25x	death and bloodshed in tandem
אֶרֶץ (ʼerets)	H776	34x	blood poured on the ground / defiling the land

Word Family / Cognates¶

H1826 דָּמַם (dâmam) — to be dumb, silent, still; root likely related to dam (blood that stops = silence/death)

Synonyms¶

No synonym entries were returned by search_relationships.py for H1818.

Antonyms¶

No antonym entries were returned by search_relationships.py for H1818.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
αἷμα (haîma)	G129	"blood" (NT parallel)	Direct Greek counterpart; same semantic range in NT
נֵצַח (nêtsach)	H5332	"their blood" (rare overlap)	nêtsach = perpetuity/juice; occasionally translated "blood" only in poetic contexts (Isa 63:3 — "blood" of grapes in winepress imagery)

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[001002010007] Liquids — search_relationships.py places dâm in the liquids field alongside H1831 דֶּמַע, H2461 חָלָב, H2534 חֵמָה, H2558 חֹמֶץ, A2562 חֲמַר, and H2561 חֶמֶר.
[001002007] People — the relationship tool also surfaces a person-related field alongside H120 אָדָם, H121 אָדָם, H157 אהב, H158 אַהַב, H193 אוּל, and H352 אַיִל.
[002001001019] Dead — search_relationships.py also links dâm to the death/destruction field, with neighbors such as A7 אבד, H6 אבד, H8 אֹבֵד, H12 אַבְדָן, H13 אָבְדָן, and A69 אֶבֶן.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occurrences	PMI Score	Notes
αἷμα (haîma)	G129	269x	34.72	Dominant equivalent — near 1:1 correspondence
ἐκχέω (ekchéō)	G1632	49x	19.73	"pour out" — renders shaphak + dam together
σφάζω (spházō)	G4969	22x	14.44	"slaughter" — renders sacrifice/killing contexts
ἄθωος (áthōos)	G121	17x	14.27	"innocent" — translates "innocent blood" phrases

The correspondence between H1818 and G129 is among the strongest in the entire Hebrew-Greek lexicon.