StrongerBible

rava

רָבַע

HebrewH7251square, foursquare

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Exo 27:1Exo 28:16Exo 30:2Exo 37:25Exo 38:1Exo 39:91Ki 7:51Ki 7:31Ezk 40:47Ezk 41:21Ezk 43:16Ezk 45:2
Root family
Word studyrah-VAHverb

What rava means

square: shaped with four sides of equal length and four right-angled corners

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong

Every time this word appears in the Bible it describes something that has been made square: an altar, the high priest's breastpiece, a doorframe, or a temple courtyard. It is a verb, but it never shows up as an action a person performs. It only ever appears in the form that describes the finished result, so in practice it works like the adjective "square."

The word is built on the same root as the number "four," and that four-ness is the heart of it: four sides, four corners, the sides matched in length. When Exodus says the altar of burnt offering is to be "square," five cubits by five cubits, or Ezekiel measures a temple court at a hundred cubits by a hundred, this is the word doing the work.

Its home is sacred architecture. The square shape it names is not decorative but ordered and deliberate, the mark of something measured out to a precise specification. That is why it clusters in the building instructions of Exodus, the temple account of 1 Kings, and Ezekiel's visionary temple.

The New Testament's one echo of this idea is the New Jerusalem, which "lies foursquare" in Revelation 21:16, using the Greek word for square, τετράγωνος. The same ideal of a perfectly ordered, measured space carries across both testaments.

Exo 27:1Exo 28:16Exo 30:2Exo 37:25Exo 38:1Exo 39:91Ki 7:51Ki 7:31Ezk 40:47Ezk 41:21Ezk 43:16Ezk 45:2

What scholars say about rava

Standard lexica (BDB; HALOT, s.v. רבע) agree the verb means "to be square, four-cornered" and treat it as derived from the numeral "four" (אַרְבַּע). It occurs only as a passive participle functioning adjectivally, concentrated in the Priestly building instructions of Exodus, the temple account of 1 Kings, and Ezekiel's temple vision. The one open question is whether it denotes a strictly equilateral square or, more broadly, a four-sided figure; the dimensions supplied are almost always equal, favoring "square," and Ezekiel 43:16 makes the four-sidedness explicit by adding "toward its four sides."

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. רבעlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. רבעlexicon

All attested forms of רָבַע

qal passive-participle m s absolute

רָבוּעַ

Exo 27:1, Exo 28:16, Exo 30:2, Exo 37:25, Exo 38:1, Exo 39:9, Ezk 43:16

pual passive-participle f p absolute

מְרֻבָּעוֹת

1Ki 7:31

pual passive-participle f s absolute

מְרֻבָּעַת

Ezk 40:47

pual passive-participle m s absolute

מְרֻבָּע

Ezk 45:2

qal passive-participle f s absolute

רְבֻעָה

Ezk 41:21

qal passive-participle m p absolute

רְבֻעִים

1Ki 7:5