Amen

It occurs thirteen times in the Masoretic text of the Old Testament, and in the Septuagint in three additional passages (Jer. iii. 19, xv. 11, Isa. xxv. 1). From these passages it is possible to trace in part the gradual development of Amen from an adjective (or, according to Barth, "Die Nominalbildung in den Semitischen Sprachen," 5c, 7b, a noun, meaning "firmness," "certainty") into an indeclinable interjection.

The primitive use of Amen is in I Kings, i. 36, where also it serves to introduce an affirmative answer. This introductory Amen occurs also in Jer. xxviii. 6; but in another passage (xi. 5) Jeremiah shows familiarity with the detached Amen. The detached Amen is that use of the Amen in which the expected answer is omitted and left to be inferred from the context. Num. v. 22 (in which Amen is repeated twice), Deut. xxvii. 15 et seq., and Neh. v. 13, show that the detached Amen was employed in solemn oaths for which the brief Amen was more effective than a whole sentence.

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