sight as a thing in itself, without settling who is doing the looking: seeing, the look a person has, or something others stare at
Hebrew already has a common, easygoing word for how something looks (מַרְאֶה). This one is different. It turns up in only four places, and it is built straight off the everyday verb "to see" (רָאָה). Building a noun that way leaves something open that English usually closes: the word names sight, but it does not say on its own whether the seeing is done by the person being described, is a quality they possess, or is being aimed at them.
Context settles it every time, and the four places settle it three different ways:
- in the name Hagar gives God in the wilderness, the seeing is most likely God's own
- in the introduction of the young David, the seeing belongs to onlookers and describes how good he looks
- in the wasting body of the sufferer Elihu describes, it is again the look of a thing, here the healthy look that has gone
- in the sentence passed on Nineveh, the seeing is done to her, and she becomes a thing crowds gape at
Every one of those four verses is difficult in its own way, and one of them, Hagar's naming, is among the most argued lines in Genesis. So this is a small case study in how much of a rare word's meaning has to be read out of its surroundings rather than looked up.
Do not expect a prophetic or visionary ring to it. Other words from the same family carry that: one names a seer, a person with a calling (רֹאֶה), and another names what a prophet is shown (מַרְאָה). This one stays ordinary: eyesight, good looks, and being stared at.
Nuances
How to construe אֵל רֳאִי in Genesis 16:13, and therefore in which direction the seeing runs. HALOT labels the phrase itself as of uncertain meaning.
- majorityThe genitive is subjective, so the epithet names God by his own act of seeing: a God of seeing, that is, the God who sees, answering the fact that God has seen Hagar's affliction, in parallel with the naming of Ishmael in verse 11. H. P. Müller's comparison of the Ugaritic epithet Ilištamʿi, El of hearing, supports construing the phrase as an El-epithet of this kind.; Rashi, commentary on Genesis 16:13; Abraham Ibn Ezra, commentary on Genesis 16:13; C. Westermann, Genesis 12-36 (BK 1/2; Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), 296; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (WBC 2; Word, 1994), on 16:13; N. M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary; Jewish Publication Society, 1989), on 16:13; V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Eerdmans, 1990), on 16:13
- minorityThe noun carries an implied first person object, equivalent to the participle with suffix, so the epithet means the God who sees me; HALOT lists this construal alongside the subjective one, and the Septuagint and Vulgate render the phrase this way.; HALOT, s.v. רֳאִי
- minorityThe genitive is objective, so the epithet names the God whom Hagar has seen, a visible God rather than a seeing one.; David Kimhi (Radak), Sefer ha-Shorashim, s.v. ראה
What רֹאִי contributes in Job 33:21, where the sufferer's flesh is consumed, and whether the clause is sound.
- contestedThe word means appearance, and the preposition is privative: the flesh is consumed away from any healthy or fair look, which is how BDB glosses מֵרֹאִי at this verse.; BDB, s.v. רֳאִי
- minorityThe clause is not sound and should be emended so that the flesh is consumed by its own wasting, with no term for sight in the colon at all; the Septuagint's paraphrase of the verse, which uses no word for sight, is cited in support.; B. Duhm, Das Buch Hiob (KHC 16; Freiburg: Mohr, 1897), on 33:21
What כְּרֹאִי means at the end of Nahum 3:6.
- majorityNineveh is made a spectacle, a warning sight that the nations gaze at; this is the reading of the modern critical commentaries and agrees with the Septuagint's εἰς παράδειγμα and the Vulgate's in exemplum.; J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL; Westminster John Knox, 1991), on 3:6; D. L. Christensen, Nahum (Anchor Yale Bible 24F; Yale University Press, 2009), on 3:6; K. Spronk, Nahum (Historical Commentary on the Old Testament; Kok Pharos, 1997), on 3:6
- minorityThe consonants are vocalized instead as a word for dung or filth, so the clause repeats the humiliation of the first colon rather than introducing the idea of public gazing.; David Kimhi (Radak), commentary on Nahum 3:6