likeness, image, reflection
Demuth carries the sense of a resemblance, a likeness drawn from something else as its original. The root verb damah means to be like, to resemble, to compare. So demuth is not a copy that merely looks similar from a distance. It is a representation that participates in the nature of what it resembles. Think of a shadow that moves when the body moves, or a son who carries his father's features in his jaw and hands. The word appears most famously in Genesis 1:26, paired with tselem, the more concrete word for image. Where tselem points to the physical stamp or form, demuth softens and clarifies: this is likeness, resemblance, correspondence. Together they say that humanity is not God, but humanity reflects God in a way nothing else in creation does. Ezekiel reaches for demuth repeatedly in his throne-chariot vision because nothing he sees is God directly. Everything around the divine throne is described as something that had the appearance of, something resembling, something like. Demuth becomes Ezekiel's word for the gap between mortal eyes and divine reality, the closest language can get before it has to kneel. In Isaiah 40:18, the prophet turns the word as a challenge: to whom will you liken God, what demuth will you compare to him? The word that described humanity's dignity in Genesis becomes the word that exposes every idol's failure. You bear a resemblance to the living God. No carved thing does.
Most of us read 'image and likeness' in Genesis as one idea said twice for emphasis, the way English sometimes doubles up for rhythm. I did that for years. But the Hebrew uses two distinct words, and demuth is doing something tselem cannot do alone. Tselem is the stamp, the concrete form. Demuth is the resemblance, the relational correspondence. When God said let us make humanity in our image, after our demuth, he was not just describing a shape. He was describing a relationship of reflection. You were made to show what God is like in the world. Not to be God. To resemble him. That is your dignity, and it is also your weight. Every time you treat another person as less than that, you are smudging a reflection of the living God.
Demuth derives from the Hebrew root damah, meaning to be like, to resemble, or to compare. The root spans the semantic range of comparison and similarity throughout the Hebrew Bible. Related forms include the verb damah and the noun mashhal, a comparison or parable. The root also connects to the Aramaic demuth and appears in cognate Semitic languages. The word family consistently carries the idea of resemblance that is intentional and meaningful, not accidental similarity.
Where demuth appears in Scripture, and why each verse showcases it.
Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'
Demuth appears here alongside tselem to establish humanity's unique status. The pairing forces the reader to hold both the concrete stamp and the relational resemblance together.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
Demuth appears here alone, without tselem, as the narrator summarizes the creation of humanity. The likeness persists even after the fall, carrying real weight for how Genesis views human dignity.
And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance.
Ezekiel stacks demuth upon demuth to show how mortal language strains toward the divine. The word itself becomes a theological confession: this is as close as human speech can reach.
To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?
The prophet weaponizes demuth against idolatry. The same word that crowned humanity with dignity exposes every carved image as a failure of resemblance.
When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
The narrator deliberately echoes the Genesis 1:26 language, placing demuth in the context of a father and son. The implication is generative: resemblance passes from God to Adam, and from Adam onward.
Words in the same semantic family.
Every video where Adam teaches on this word, in publication order.
