What does olam ("everlasting," "forever") mean in Hebrew?
Olam (עוֹלָם) means a long duration, an age, "forever" or "everlasting" as far as the horizon can see. "The everlasting God" (Gen 21:33); "from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Ps 90:2). Of God it means truly eternal.
What the text states
Olam points to the vanishing point, time out of sight in either direction. Applied to God it means eternity itself, “from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps 90:2). Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God “hath set the world [olam] in their heart”, eternity in the human heart, the sense that we were made for more than time. The word that measures God's years is the word for the longing He put in us.
Applied to created things it can mean a very long age (a servant serving “for ever,” Exod 21:6, means his lifetime).
Go deeper
Checked 2026-09-29 by Darren. 45 Scripture citations verified against the KJV rows. Every Strong's number in the wave-3 notes resolved against our own strongs_greek / strongs_hebrew and the lemma matched the form in the file. Wave 3. 45 quoted fragments table-passed against the verses table, all pass. 21 Greek and 3 Hebrew Strong's entries cross-checked against strongs_greek (5,523 rows) and strongs_hebrew (8,674). Three notes, none a form mismatch: (1) G2434 hilasmos is glossed in our table as 'atonement... an expiator', usage 'propitiation', so Strong's own wording is softer than the answer's 'not merely expiation'; Thayer and BDAG carry the propitiation sense and the KJV renders it so. (2) G728 is spelled arrhabon in our table (double rho) against the file's arrabon; the same word, a transliteration convention. (3) our table derives skenoo (G4637) from skenos (G4636), while the answer says it is built on skene (G4633); the three are cognate and skene is the LXX's tabernacle word. One reference in the wave-3 verification notes did not exist: Rev 22:24 (Revelation 22 ends at verse 21). Ruled by Darren 2026-09-29 a typo for Rev 22:17 and corrected in the source file. The hilasmos gloss discrepancy was ruled the same day: the answer stands and is not softened.
wsb.bible/answers/olam