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Summary
- Amber appears three times in the King James Bible, in Ezekiel 1:4, 1:27 and 8:2. No person in Scripture is named Amber.
- The Hebrew word is chashmal, found only in those verses; the Septuagint rendered it elektron, amber or a gold-silver alloy.
- Many Bibles translate it as a shining metal: “glowing metal” (NIV), “bronce refulgente” (Reina-Valera 1960), “airain poli” (Louis Segond).
- The name Amber comes from the English word for fossil resin, from Arabic ʿanbar, “ambergris,” and became popular after the novel Forever Amber (1944).
- In the vision the brightness belongs to “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezekiel 1:28).
Bibliography (Click to show)
Sources: Behind the Name entry for Amber; Online Etymology Dictionary, “amber”; Scripture from the KJV and NIV via BibleGateway (Ezekiel 1:1-4, 27-28; 8:2), compared with the Reina-Valera 1960, Louis Segond 1910, Nuova Riveduta 2006 and Almeida Revista e Corrigida at Ezekiel 1:4.
