Bible word study

Olam (Strong’s H5769): Meaning in the Bible

Olam (עוֹלָם) is the Hebrew word numbered H5769 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as properly, concealed, i.e. the vanishing point; generally, time out of mind (past or future), i.e. (practically) eternity; frequentatively, adverbial (especially with prepositional prefix) always. In the King James Bible it is translated alway(-s), ancient (time), any more, continuance, eternal.

• Original wordעוֹלָם
• Transliterationʻôwlâm
• Pronunciationo-lawm'
• Part of speechnoun (masculine) (n-m)
• Strong’s numberH5769
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. or עֹלָם; from H5956;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Olam appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Olam (H5769) stands behind 431 English renderings in 406 verses across 33 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Psalms (141), Isaiah (46), Jeremiah (34).

How the King James Bible renders Olam, by count

• ever272 of 431 (63 percent)
• everlasting63 of 431 (15 percent)
• old22 of 431 (5 percent)
• perpetual21 of 431 (5 percent)
• evermore15 of 431 (3 percent)
• never12 of 431 (3 percent)

Three places to read Olam

• Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
• 2 Chronicles 30:8 Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.
• Psalms 136:26 O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Olam in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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