Understanding the Meaning of ‘Adoniyqam in Hebrew

אֲדֹנִיקָם (Adoniyqam) is a personal name used of one or two Israelites. It appears in lists that count families returning and later traveling with named representatives.

Occurrences

“The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty-six.” (Ezra 2:13)

Here אֲדֹנִיקָם functions as a family identifier within a numbered register. The expression “The children of Adonikam” frames the name as the head-label for a group large enough to be counted in the hundreds, and the verse preserves the total (“six hundred sixty-six”) as the key piece of information attached to the name in this context. The word’s contribution is therefore not descriptive but classificatory: it marks which household or clan the number belongs to.

“Of the sons of Adonikam, who were the last; and these are their names: Eliphelet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah; and with them sixty males.” (Ezra 8:13)

In this travel list, the name again anchors a group (“Of the sons of Adonikam”), but the focus shifts from a single total to a small set of representatives. The clause “who were the last” distinguishes this contingent within the broader “sons of Adonikam,” and the verse then names three individuals—“Eliphelet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah”—who stand as identifiable members of the group. The final tally, “with them sixty males,” gives the size of those accompanying the named leaders. In this scene, אֲדֹנִיקָם serves to situate specific persons and their company within a wider family line that can be referenced by a single name.

“The children of Adonikam: six hundred sixty-seven.” (Nehemiah 7:18)

This occurrence mirrors the list style of Ezra 2, again using “The children of Adonikam” as a heading for a counted group. The punctuation and layout (“The children of Adonikam: …”) emphasize the name as the label under which the number is recorded. The total here is “six hundred sixty-seven,” placing the name within the same kind of administrative memory as Ezra 2:13, but with a slightly different figure. The word’s role remains the same: it identifies which descendants are being counted.

Sense and Usage

Across these passages, אֲדֹנִיקָם operates as a stable reference point in communal records. The name is not used in narration or speech but in enumerations where accuracy and group identity matter. Two of the occurrences are terse list entries consisting of a group designation (“children of …”) and a number; the name functions like a heading in a census-style register, allowing the community to preserve who belongs to which family and in what quantity. The third occurrence (Ezra 8:13) expands the same basic pattern by attaching named individuals to the family designation, showing how a large “sons of” group can be represented by particular persons and an accompanying count.

The definition “the name of one or two Israelites” fits the way these texts handle the word: it is a name that can denote an individual and, by extension through the repeated “children/sons of” phrasing, a line of descendants associated with that individual. The lists do not explain who Adonikam is; they use the name as an established marker of belonging, suggesting that what matters in these contexts is the recognized identity of the group rather than biographical detail about the named person. In practical terms within these verses, the name is a means of organizing people into accountable units: counted in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, and represented by named men and a counted company in Ezra 8.

These passages also show two complementary ways a personal name can function in record-keeping. First, it can stand for a large body of descendants whose primary feature, in the list, is their number. Second, it can serve as a genealogical tag connecting smaller, named subsets to a larger family identity. Thus the same name supports both aggregation (hundreds counted under a heading) and specification (individuals and “sixty males” located within that heading). The repeated phrasing “children of Adonikam” / “sons of Adonikam” maintains continuity of identity across different lists and moments, so that the name carries administrative weight as a recognized family designation.

List Imagery

In these verses the name evokes the plain imagery of ordered lines and tallies: a household identified, its number recorded, and in one case its representatives named. The effect is concrete and communal—Adonikam is not presented through story but through counted people, where a single name gathers many individuals into one entry.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon. Occurrence data from the Westminster Leningrad Codex with STEPBible reference data (CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).