H7290 — רָדַם (rādam)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H7290
Original: רָדַם
Transliteration: rādam
Pronunciation: raw-dam
Part of Speech: Verb (primitive root)
Occurrences: 7 in OT (BLB count; all 7 are Niphal stem per BHSA)
First Occurrence: Judges 4:21 — "he was fast asleep and weary" (Sisera, slain by Jael)
Hapax Legomenon: No, but rare — only 7 occurrences total, and the 1cs perfect form nirdamtî (Dan 8:18) is a hapax form

Lexicon Definition¶

A primitive root; to stun, i.e. stupefy (with sleep or death):—(be fast a-, be in a deep, cast into a dead, that) sleep(-er, -eth). — Strong's H7290

The gloss "stun / stupefy" is significant: rādam is not ordinary sleep (yāšēn, H3462) but an overwhelmed state, something imposed on the subject — whether by exhaustion, by a divine agent, or as a metaphor for death.

Verb Stem Distribution¶

Stem	Count	Typical Meaning
Niphal	7	be stunned, be in a deep/dead sleep (passive/stative)

All 7 occurrences are Niphal — the root does not appear in Qal or other active stems in the MT. The Niphal is semantically stative/passive: the subject is acted upon (stupefied) rather than actively sleeping. BHSA parses 6 of the 7 as Niphal participle (ongoing state: "being stunned/in deep sleep") and 1 as Niphal perfect 1cs (Dan 8:18, nirdamtî). Jonah 1:5 is Niphal wayyiqtol 3ms.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Count	%
was fast asleep	1	14.3%
and was fast asleep	1	14.3%
O sleeper	1	14.3%
he that sleepeth	1	14.3%
I was in a deep sleep	1	14.3%
in a deep sleep	1	14.3%
are cast into a dead sleep	1	14.3%

Because the word occurs only 7 times, each occurrence gets a distinct KJV rendering. The translators clearly felt the word demanded more than "slept" — they reached for intensive glosses ("fast asleep," "deep sleep," "dead sleep") to convey the stupefied quality that distinguishes rādam from ordinary yāšēn.

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Jonah	2	4.17
Daniel	2	0.56
Judges	1	0.16
Psalms	1	0.04
Proverbs	1	0.11

Strikingly absent from the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets (except Judges), and the wisdom literature except for a single Proverb. The word clusters where divine confrontation or judgment is in view (Jonah, Daniel, Ps 76) or where sleep functions as a mark of vulnerability/shame (Jdg 4, Prov 10).

Semantic Categories¶

1. Deep sleep induced by divine encounter (prophetic stupor)¶

The Niphal state that falls on a prophet in the presence of a heavenly being — a functional equivalent of the tardēmāh (H8639) that fell on Abram (Gen 15:12), Adam (Gen 2:21), and Saul's camp (1 Sam 26:12). - Dan 8:18 — "Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep (nirdamtî) on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright." - Dan 10:9 — "when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep (nirdām) on my face, and my face toward the ground."

2. Deep sleep as divinely imposed judgment¶

The stupor that God casts on enemies, rendering them unable to resist. - Ps 76:6 [MT 76:7] — "At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep (nirdām)." The parallelism with v.5 ("they have slept their sleep... none of the men of might have found their hands") shows rādam here = battlefield paralysis imposed by YHWH's rebuke (gǎʿǎrāh).

3. Deep sleep of exhaustion preceding death¶

A stupor of vulnerability that opens the subject to destruction. - Jdg 4:21 — "he was fast asleep (nirdām) and weary (wayyāʿap). So he died." Sisera's rādam state — an exhausted collapse — is the precondition for Jael's tent-peg. The text yokes rādam directly to ʿāyēp (weary) and then to mût (he died).

4. Deep sleep of negligence / moral failure¶

In Wisdom and prophetic narrative, being found nirdām at the critical moment is shameful. - Prov 10:5 — "He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth (nirdām) in harvest is a son that causeth shame." Sleeping through the harvest season. - Jonah 1:5 — "But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep (wayyērādam)." - Jonah 1:6 — "So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper (nirdām)? arise, call upon thy God..." The shipmaster's rebuke — "What are you doing in this stupor? Get up!" — treats the rādam state as culpable abdication.

Common Collocations¶

From the 7 verse contexts:

Co-occurring element	Pattern	References
Falling "on the face" (`ʿal-pānay` + `ʾarṣāh`)	prophetic prostration	Dan 8:18; Dan 10:9
Being touched / raised up (`nāgaʿ`, `ʿāmad` Hiphil)	angelic restoration after rādam	Dan 8:18 (`wayyiggaʿ-bî`, `wayyaʿămîdēnî`)
Weariness (`ʿāyēp`, H5888/H5889)	exhausted stupor	Jdg 4:21
Death (`mût`, H4191)	rādam → death	Jdg 4:21
Divine rebuke (`gǎʿǎrāh`, H1606)	judicial stupor	Ps 76:6
Harvest / summer (`qāyiṣ`, `qāṣîr`)	shameful mistiming	Prov 10:5
Going down (`yārad`, H3381)	descent + stupor	Jonah 1:5 (Jonah "went down" then rādam)
Call / cry (`qārāʾ`, H7121)	rebuke of the sleeper	Jonah 1:6

Word Family / Cognates¶

H8639 תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardēmāh) — feminine noun from rādam; "deep sleep, lethargy, trance." 7 occurrences, used for the sleep God caused to fall on Adam (Gen 2:21), Abram (Gen 15:12), and Saul's camp (1 Sam 26:12); also Job 4:13; 33:15; Prov 19:15; Isa 29:10. This is the nominalized form of rādam and its primary theological cognate. Every prophetic/divine "deep sleep" scene either uses the verb rādam or the noun tardēmāh.

Synonyms¶

No direct synonyms were returned by search_relationships.py for H7290.

Antonyms¶

No antonyms were returned by search_relationships.py for H7290.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Gloss	Key Difference
יָשֵׁן yāšēn	H3462	"sleep" (verb)	Ordinary, volitional sleep; one goes to bed and sleeps. rādam is imposed stupor — you don't choose it, it falls on you.
שֵׁנָה šēnāh	H8142	"sleep" (noun)	Ordinary sleep as a state; appears alongside rādam at Ps 76:5–6 (šēnāh in v.5, rādam in v.6) showing intentional intensification.
נוּם nûm	H5123	"slumber, doze"	Light sleep / nodding off (cf. Ps 121:4 "he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep"). Opposite end of the spectrum from rādam.
תַּרְדֵּמָה tardēmāh	H8639	"deep sleep"	Same semantic field, same root — the noun form.

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[002001001004] Asleep — the core sleep / stupor field.
[002002001013] Non-Move — reflects the immobilized, stupefied quality of rādam rather than ordinary rest.

LXX Mapping¶

The PMI-weighted LXX co-occurrence data (from search_strongs.py --lxx-map) shows only function-word matches (γῆ, ἀπό, θεός, ἐν), not a dominant verbal equivalent. This reflects the rarity of rādam (7x) and the fact that the LXX renders each occurrence with a different Greek verb rather than a consistent gloss:

LXX Greek (by passage)	Greek lemma	Notes
Jdg 4:21	ἐξεστώς / ἀπεσκάρισεν (text-variant)	"stupefied" / "convulsed"
Ps 76:6 [LXX 75:7]	ἐνύσταξαν (from νυστάζω)	"slumbered, nodded off"
Prov 10:5	ἐξηνεμώθη	"was blown through by wind / dazed"
Jonah 1:5–6	ἐκάθευδεν / καθεύδων (from καθεύδω)	"was sleeping / sleeper"
Dan 8:18 (Theodotion)	κοιμώμενος / ὕπνωσα	forms of κοιμάομαι / ὑπνόω
Dan 10:9 (Theodotion)	κατανενυγμένος (from κατανύσσω)	"pierced / stunned"

No single Greek word captures rādam. Most telling is κατανύσσω at Dan 10:9 — literally "to prick / stun deeply" — which matches Strong's gloss "stupefy" best. This same verb appears in Acts 2:37 ("they were pricked in their heart"), showing the LXX translators felt rādam conveyed a shock quality absent from ordinary καθεύδω.

Grammatical Note: The Niphal-Only Pattern¶

That all 7 occurrences are Niphal is itself a lexical fact: rādam exists in the MT only as a state that befalls the subject. There is no active "to deeply-sleep someone" — the causative must be supplied by another agent (God in Ps 76:6; exhaustion in Jdg 4:21; angelic presence in Dan 8:18 / 10:9). This makes every rādam occurrence implicitly ask: what agent or cause induced this stupor?

The Niphal participle (6 of 7 forms) conveys ongoing state ("[he is] in a stupefied condition"), while the single Niphal perfect nirdamtî (Dan 8:18) is Daniel's first-person recollection of the completed event: "I fell into / entered the stupor." The wayyiqtol at Jonah 1:5 (wayyērādam) frames the onset narratively: "and he [went and] fell into deep sleep."