Cease)¶

The Chain¶

Hebrew OT          LXX (Greek OT)         Greek NT
───────────        ───────────────         ────────
תָּמַם (tamam)  →  ἐκλείπω (ekleipo)   →  ἐκλείπω (ekleipo)
H8552, 61x         22x as translation      3x in NT
"be complete,       of tamam                "fail, cease"
 be consumed"

OT Usage (Hebrew)¶

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	Primary Meaning
H8552	תָּמַם (tamam)	61v	be complete, be finished, be consumed
H8535	תָּם (tam)	—	complete, whole, plain (adjective cognate)
H8537	תֹּם (tom)	—	completeness, integrity (noun cognate)
H8549	תָּמִים (tamiym)	—	complete, without blemish (adjective cognate)

Key OT passages: - Gen 47:15 — money "failed" (tamam) — resource exhaustion - Num 14:35 — "in this wilderness they shall be consumed" (tamam) — divine judgment - Lam 3:22 — "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed" (tamam) — mercy restraining consumption - Dan 9:24 — "to finish the transgression" (tamam) — eschatological completion

See H8552-tamam.md

LXX Bridge¶

Hebrew	Greek Translation	Co-occ	PMI Score	Notes
tamam (H8552)	ἐκλείπω (ekleipo) G1587	22×	18.71	Primary — captures "fail/cease/be consumed" sense
tamam (H8552)	συντελέω (synteleo) G4931	9×	10.65	Secondary — captures "complete entirely" sense
tamam (H8552)	τέλος (telos) G5056	7×	9.19	Tertiary — "end, completion"
tamam (H8552)	τήκω (teko) G5080	3×	7.24	Minor — "melt" for wasting/consumption
tamam (H8552)	παύω (pauo) G3973	3×	6.08	Minor — "cease, stop"

Hebrew words also translated as ekleipo in LXX:

Hebrew	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI Score
כָּלָה (kalah)	H3615	30×	15.96
גָּוַע (gavaʻ)	H1478	8×	12.78
חָרַר (charar)	H2787	5×	11.36
כָּרַת (karath)	H3772	16×	9.18
אָפֵס (ʼaphes)	H656	3×	9.15

Semantic shift in translation: The LXX splits tamam's dual sense. The positive "be complete/finished" sense goes to synteleo (G4931) — completing a task. The negative "be consumed/exhausted" sense goes to ekleipo (G1587) — ceasing, failing. Ekleipo wins as the primary bridge because tamam's "consumed" usage (26% of KJV translations) is its most frequent sense. The moral integrity sense (Hithpael "show oneself upright") is too rare (2 occurrences) to generate a distinct LXX equivalent.

NT Usage (Greek)¶

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	Primary Meaning
G1587	ἐκλείπω (ekleipo)	3v	fail, cease, die out

Ekleipo appears only 3 times in the entire NT:

Luke 16:9 — "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations" — resource exhaustion (echoes Gen 47:15 money "failed")
Luke 22:32 — "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" — faith ceasing/being consumed
Heb 1:12 — "thy years shall not fail" — eternity, no cessation (echoes Psa 102:27 where tamam underlies the Hebrew)

TODO(need G1587 study)

Direct OT→NT Quotations¶

NT Verse	Quotes OT	Shared Word	Significance
Heb 1:12	Psalm 102:26–27	tamam → ekleipo	"thy years shall not fail" — God's eternal constancy vs. creation that is consumed/finished. The Hebrew tamam (Qal imperfect "shall not be complete/consumed") maps through LXX ekleipo into the Hebrews quotation.

Continuity and Shifts¶

What stays the same across testaments: - The core sense of "failing/ceasing" transfers directly — resources fail (Gen 47:15 → Luk 16:9), years do not fail (Psa 102:27 → Heb 1:12) - The word carries an existential weight in both testaments: what is consumed ceases to exist

What shifts: - OT tamam has a rich dual polarity (positive completion + negative consumption + moral integrity) that collapses in the NT to primarily negative "fail/cease" via ekleipo - The positive "completion" sense of tamam is carried into the NT not by ekleipo but by synteleo (G4931) and teleo (G5055) — the semantic load distributes across multiple Greek verbs - The moral-integrity sense (Hithpael "show oneself upright") has no NT trace through ekleipo at all