What is the meaning of the Hebrew wordadamah?

Several Hebrew words are translated 'earth,' but they are not employed to distinguish the earth as a sphere from the surface of the earth, or ground; nor to discriminate between the general surface of the earth, and any portion of it as 'land,' or the soil of the earth. Thus adamah generally refers to the earth as ground or soil: the rain falleth on 'the earth,' Gen. 7:4; 'an altar of earth,' Ex. 20:24; man 'returneth to his earth,' Ps. 146:4; but it often refers to the 'land' of Israel: 'prolong your days upon the land;' 'dwell in the land;' 'live in the land;' 'the land which I sware unto their fathers.' Deut. 30:18, 20; Deut. 31:13, 20.

A’dam - Man: red earth

A da’mah The earth, ground

Next let us think of the last mentioned colour - the scarlet. It is the very opposite of the blue; no other colours could more completely picture the idea of absolute contrast. As the blue pictures the heavenly and the Divine, so the scarlet pictures the earthly and the human. It is, as someone has said, the colour which suggests both man and mud. We may find that thought almost at the beginning of the Bible, where we read that the first man was called Adam, a word which Newberry translates as "red earth". (A glance at a lexicon will show that "adam" is a word which is used some hundreds of times for "man", and that a form of it is used for "dyed red" is such Scriptures as Exodus 25:5, and that it is closely related to "adamah" which is used about two hundred times for "earth", "ground", or "land".)

In the third place, Adamah, "ground," carries on the thought. Man is Adam, from adamah, "dust from the ground;" and in it every element of all flesh (as that) is found. God has to add to it a higher principle to make it such, and lift it thereby into a higher sphere. Instead of mere chemistry, it is now permeated by vitality, and displays powers wholly foreign to it before. Thus, as in man God has taken up the dust of the earth to raise it above itself and lift it into another sphere, so with man himself; what he is in the old creation is but the shadow of what he shall be in the new creation. The dust of the ground is, as exalted in man, a type and prophecy of man himself.

The common word for "man" in the Old Testament is Adam (literally meaning "red earth"), emphasising his origin rather than his constitution. There is no thought in the word that man was destined to return to the earth or dust. The analogous term "Son of Man" shows that the One to whom the term is applied was a true man in descent and inheritance. These names denote mankind in general as distinct from the "sons of Ish," (the men of high degree or princely position).

Ad’mah - Earthiness

From the above examples it will be seen that in some instances where the A.V. has 'earth,' the 'land' only, or the land of Canaan, may be intended; the context must be studied in each case.

The earth is the revealed scene of God's dealings - hence, often more immediately connected with the land (the same word) of Palestine.

*It is not "the earth" as a whole as in A. V., nor yet as in R. V. "the land," etc., as that particular one objectively viewed, but characteristically "land"; for here English idiom as often coincides with Greek.

What made the psalmist choose two distinct names for man? The English version does not make this distinction plain; but the Hebrew does. Adam simply means man, man as God created him out of the dust of the earth, man unfallen, man “who is the figure of Him who was to come” (Rom. 5:14). Enosh means man as well, but man as frail, fallen, dying, passing away.