# H0113 - adon **Strong's:** [H113](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h113/) · BLB lookup **Pronunciation:** aw-dohn' **Part of speech:** masculine noun **Frequency:** ~335 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible (combined forms; the suffixed and pluralized forms account for the bulk) **LXX equivalent:** κύριος ([G2962 - kyrios](/codex/g2962-kyrios/), "lord / master") ## Semantic range (Brown-Driver-Briggs) 1. **Lord, master**, of any superior in a relation of authority: a slave-owner over slaves, a husband over a household, a ruler over subjects, a king over a kingdom. This is the foundational social sense, *adon* names someone whose authority creates an asymmetric relation requiring deference, obedience, or service. 2. **Master, owner**, proprietary sense: the one to whom the slave / land / household belongs ([Genesis 24:9-10](/codex/genesis-24-9-10/); [Exodus 21:4-8](/codex/exodus-21-4-8/)). 3. **Lord, divine title**, when applied to God, names YHWH as the sovereign master of Israel and of the cosmos. The intensive plural *adonai* (אֲדֹנָי, [H0136 - adonai](/codex/h0136-adonai/)) is the dedicated divine form, used as a vocal substitute for the Tetragrammaton. ## Theological force, the Lord-vs-Lord predication *Adon* matters christologically because of one verse: **[Psalms 110.1](/codex/psalms-110-1/)**, *nəʾum YHWH la-ʾdoni*, "**The LORD says to my Lord**, 'Sit at My right hand.'" The two distinct words for "Lord" in a single sentence create the apologetic and theological lever: - *YHWH* (the Tetragrammaton), the LORD who speaks - *adoni* (אֲדֹנִי, *adon* + 1cs suffix), *my Lord*, addressed by David, who is the speaker of the Psalm David, the king of Israel, calls someone else "my Lord", and that someone is being told by YHWH to sit at YHWH's right hand. **No mere human messianic king is David's lord** (David is the king); only a figure greater than David fits the syntax. Jesus ([Matthew 22:41-46](/codex/matthew-22-41-46/); [Mark 12:35-37](/codex/mark-12-35-37/); [Luke 20:41-44](/codex/luke-20-41-44/)) makes this the climactic question of His public ministry: "If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his son?" The Pharisees cannot answer; the question is the wedge for high christology. Peter's Pentecost sermon ([Acts 2:34-36](/codex/acts-2-34-36/)) closes the loop: God has made Jesus *both Lord and Christ*, and the proof is that [Psalm 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/)'s "my Lord" is the risen Jesus seated at the Father's right hand. [Hebrews 1:13](/codex/hebrews-1-13/) makes the same move ("To which of the angels has He ever said, 'Sit at My right hand'?"). [Romans 10:9](/codex/romans-10-9/)'s confession *Kyrios Iēsous* ("Jesus is Lord") is the LXX-form of the *adoni* predication. The lever is **the unique applicability of *adon* / *kyrios* to Jesus by David's mouth in YHWH's prophecy**. This is why [Psalm 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/) is the most-quoted OT verse in the NT. ## Notable verses ### The christological locus classicus - **[Psalms 110.1](/codex/psalms-110-1/)**, *YHWH* speaks to *adoni*, the two-Lord predication - **[Matthew 22:41-46](/codex/matthew-22-41-46/)**, Jesus's "Whose son is the Christ?" question turning on *adoni* - **[Mark 12:35-37](/codex/mark-12-35-37/); [Luke 20:41-44](/codex/luke-20-41-44/)**, synoptic parallels - **[Acts 2:34-36](/codex/acts-2-34-36/)**, Peter's Pentecost identification of *adoni* as the risen Jesus - **[Hebrews 1:13](/codex/hebrews-1-13/); [Hebrews 5:6](/codex/hebrews-5-6/); 7:17, 21; 10:12-13**, Hebrews' sustained use of [Ps 110](/codex/psalms-110/) ### Other christologically loaded *adon* texts - **[Malachi 3.1](/codex/malachi-3-1/)**, "the *adon* (הָאָדוֹן, with the article, *the* Lord) whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple", the awaited divine arrival; the article makes this not just *a* lord but *the* Lord, a title applied here to YHWH-coming-in-person, fulfilled in Jesus's temple-cleansing ([Mark 11:15-17](/codex/mark-11-15-17/) par.) - **[Isaiah 6:1](/codex/isaiah-6-1/)**, Isaiah sees *adonai* (אֲדֹנָי, the divine plural) seated on the throne; [John 12:41](/codex/john-12-41/) says Isaiah "saw His [Christ's] glory and spoke of Him" - **[Daniel 9:17](/codex/daniel-9-17/), [19](/codex/daniel-9-19/); [Nehemiah 1:11](/codex/nehemiah-1-11/)**, *adonai* in covenant prayer ### Social / household *adon* - **[Genesis 18:12](/codex/genesis-18-12/)**, Sarah calls Abraham *adoni*, wifely-deferential use (cited in [1 Peter 3:6](/codex/1-peter-3-6/) for Sarah's faith-pattern) - **[Genesis 24:9-10](/codex/genesis-24-9-10/), [12](/codex/genesis-24-12/), [14](/codex/genesis-24-14/), [27](/codex/genesis-24-27/), [35-36](/codex/genesis-24-35-36/), [42](/codex/genesis-24-42/)**, the servant of Abraham repeatedly says *adoni Abraham*, patriarchal-household sense - **[Exodus 21:4-8](/codex/exodus-21-4-8/)**, slave-master relation in the case-law; *adon* names the proprietor - **[Judges 19:11-12](/codex/judges-19-11-12/)**, host-guest deferential address - **[1 Samuel 25:24-31](/codex/1-samuel-25-24-31/)**, Abigail's twelvefold *adoni* to David, graceful deference - **[2 Samuel 19:19](/codex/2-samuel-19-19/), [26-28](/codex/2-samuel-19-26-28/)**, Mephibosheth and Shimei use *adoni-ha-melekh* ("my lord the king"), royal-court deference ### Cosmic *adon* - **[Joshua 3:11](/codex/joshua-3-11/), [13](/codex/joshua-3-13/)**, "the ark of the *Adon* of all the earth", YHWH titled as universal sovereign - **[Psalm 8:1](/codex/psalms-8-1/), [9](/codex/psalms-8-9/)**, *YHWH adoneinu*, "O LORD, our Lord", the bracketing doxology of [Psalm 8](/codex/psalms-8/) - **[Zechariah 6:5](/codex/zechariah-6-5/)**, "the *Adon* of the whole earth" ## *Adon* and *Adonai*, the relationship [H0136 - adonai](/codex/h0136-adonai/) (אֲדֹנָי) is grammatically an intensive plural of *adon* with a 1cs suffix ("my Lords"), but functions as a frozen divine title, used as the audible substitute for *YHWH* when the Tetragrammaton is read aloud (the *qere perpetuum* tradition: in the Masoretic text the consonants of *YHWH* carry the vowels of *adonai* as a reading-cue). This is why every English translation that prints "LORD" (small caps) for *YHWH* and "Lord" for *adonai* is preserving an originally vocal distinction between the proper name and its substituted reading. The LXX collapses the distinction by rendering both as κύριος. This collapse is christologically momentous: when the NT writers apply κύριος to Jesus, they are using the same lexeme the LXX uses to render both the Tetragrammaton and the divine title, and the choice to apply it to the resurrected Jesus is therefore a maximally weighted predication. [Romans 10:9](/codex/romans-10-9/) ("Jesus is *Kyrios*"), [Philippians 2:11](/codex/philippians-2-11/) ("every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is *Kyrios*"), and [1 Corinthians 12:3](/codex/1-corinthians-12-3/) ("no one can say 'Jesus is *Kyrios*' except by the Holy Spirit") all weaponize this LXX-equivalence. ## Patristic / scholarly note The early church's confession *Kyrios Iēsous* ([Romans 10:9](/codex/romans-10-9/)) is the earliest Christian creed (Hengel, *The Son of God*, 1976; Bauckham, *Jesus and the God of Israel*, 2008). Its provocative force is precisely the LXX-reading of *adon* / *adonai* / *YHWH* under one Greek lexeme: confessing Jesus as *Kyrios* is confessing Him as the bearer of the divine name, what Larry Hurtado calls the "binitarian devotion pattern" of earliest Christianity. The Roman political pressure (Pliny to Trajan, ca. AD 112; the *Kyrios Kaisar* loyalty oath) sharpened the confession: the early Christians refused to call the emperor *Kyrios* because the title was reserved for Jesus, a refusal that explicitly traces to the OT's exclusive *adon-adonai-YHWH* lordship of the covenant God. The Targums and Rabbinic literature treat [Psalm 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/) with unease, by the time of the Tannaim, the predominant rabbinic reading deflects the *adoni* away from a divine messianic referent (assigning it to Abraham, then to David himself). Daniel Boyarin (*The Jewish Gospels*, 2012) and Michael Heiser (*The Unseen Realm*, 2015) argue the deflection is **secondary**, that pre-Christian Jewish exegesis (4Q174; 11QMelchizedek; [Daniel 7](/codex/daniel-7/)'s Son of Man; the *Two Powers in Heaven* tradition cataloged by Alan Segal) was open to a divine-messianic reading of *adoni* in [Ps 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/), and that the rabbis closed it down precisely *because* Christians had cemented the christological reading. ## Verses in this codex _See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here._ Top-cited references using *adon* / *adonai*: [Psalms 110.1](/codex/psalms-110-1/), [Malachi 3.1](/codex/malachi-3-1/), [Acts 2:34-36](/codex/acts-2-34-36/) (NT citation). ## See also - [H0136 - adonai](/codex/h0136-adonai/), *adonai*, the intensive plural divine title, vocal substitute for YHWH - [H3068 - YHWH](/codex/h3068-yhwh/), the Tetragrammaton; the *first* Lord of [Psalm 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/) - [G2962 - kyrios](/codex/g2962-kyrios/), Greek "Lord"; the LXX rendering of all three (*adon*, *adonai*, YHWH) - [Psalms 110.1](/codex/psalms-110-1/), the locus classicus - [Two Powers in Heaven](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven/), pre-Christian Jewish background for divine-messianic *adon* reading - [Cumulative Case for the Deity of Christ](/codex/cumulative-case-for-the-deity-of-christ/), [Ps 110:1](/codex/psalms-110-1/) as a load-bearing argument