Abstract: This article explores issues with past suggestions concerning the etymology of the name Cumorah and suggests a slightly updated etymology, “Rise up, O Light of the Lord.” It then suggests that Book of Mormon references to the Hill Cumorah appear to confirm the proposed etymology, thus becoming an apt description of the Restoration.

No one should be under the illusion that scholarship in the humanities is an exact science. There are rules, to be sure, with acceptable and unacceptable methodologies, with non sequiturs and sequiturs, with good data and bad data. Knowing that definitive answers in the humanities are often ephemeral is nowhere more important than in the attempt to provide an etymology for Book of Mormon names, including the subject of this essay: the geographic name Cumorah. In fact, definitive explanations of Book of Mormon names are not possible, partly because we do not know for sure what language lies behind Joseph Smith’s translation of the plates.1 Until we have access to the plates and have learned how to read them, the best we can do is to offer an etymology based on educated guesses. What follows is an educated guess about the name Cumorah.

One of the first issues to clear up is that Cumorah is a geographic name and may not follow in all aspects the patterns evidenced in personal names. Nevertheless, I have assumed that Cumorah would [Page 240]follow the same general lexical and semantic patterns I have used in preparing the majority of the etymologies of names in the digital Book of Mormon Onomasticon at https://onoma.lib.byu.edu. A major lesson of that onomasticon is that most of the entries reflect ancient Hebrew patterns.

Years ago, David A. Palmer and Robert F. Smith independently proposed that Cumorah means “Arise, O Light.”2 As these authors pointed out, the Hebrew verb qūm, “arise/rise (up),” along with the Hebrew noun ʾôr, or the feminine form ʾôrah,3 meaning “light, flame, fire,” together yield the meaning, “rise up, (O) light.” This explanation of Cumorah, “Rise up, O light” is a very tempting etymology, given the significance of the Hill Cumorah in Latter-day Saint scripture and Restoration history, and even prefigures the “glad tidings from Cumorah” of Doctrine and Covenants 128:20.