StrongerBible

re'aḥ

רֵיחַ

HebrewH7381“aroma, scent, ...”

Appears 58 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 8:21Gen 27:27 (3×)Exo 5:21Exo 29:18Exo 29:25Exo 29:41Lev 1:9Lev 1:13Lev 1:17Lev 2:2Lev 2:9Sng 1:3Sng 1:12Sng 2:13Sng 7:13(14)Jer 48:11Hos 14:6(7)
Root family
Word studyREH-akhnoun

What re'aḥ means

a smell or scent: the odor a thing gives off, whether sweet or foul.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

At its core this word names what the nose picks up: the scent that rises from something. The Bible uses it for the good and the bad alike, but most of its appearances are pleasant ones: the fragrance of a field, a fruit, a perfume, or the smoke of a sacrifice drifting upward.

Its most common home is the worship of Israel, in the set phrase a pleasing scent, used over and over for an offering that God accepts. The picture is bold and physical: the smell of the burning gift reaches God and pleases him. Read carefully, it is a way of saying the worshiper has been received, not a claim that God needs the food.

The same plain word turns figurative in one striking place. To say a person's scent has become foul to someone is to say that person has become hated and repellent in their eyes. Smell, in other words, can stand for reputation: how a person comes across to those around them.

Nuances

1athe smell of a sacrifice rising to God, almost always in the phrase a pleasing or soothing aroma that signals an accepted offering.
Gen 8:21Exo 29:18Exo 29:25Exo 29:41Lev 1:9Lev 1:13Lev 1:17Lev 2:2Lev 2:9Lev 2:12Lev 3:5Lev 3:16
1bthe natural fragrance of a plant, fruit, field, perfume, or wine.
Gen 27:27 (3×)Job 14:9Sng 1:3Sng 1:12Sng 2:13Sng 4:10Sng 4:11Sng 7:8Sng 7:13(14)Jer 48:11Hos 14:6(7)
1cscent as a figure for reputation or standing: to make someone's smell foul is to make them hated and repellent.
Exo 5:21

What scholars say about re'aḥ

The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat this as a single noun meaning smell or scent, derived from the root meaning to smell or breathe. They distinguish contextual senses rather than separate words: the sacrificial sense, dominated by the formula ריח ניחח (a soothing or pleasing aroma), found chiefly in the cultic legislation of Exodus through Numbers and in Ezekiel; the natural fragrance of plants, fruit, and ointments, concentrated in Song of Songs and in agrarian imagery (Genesis 27:27; Hosea 14:6; Job 14:9; Jeremiah 48:11); and a figurative extension where the noun denotes reputation or standing (Exodus 5:21, the foul smell idiom). On the cultic phrase, the consensus (TDOT; commentaries on Leviticus by Milgrom and Hartley) reads it as a stereotyped anthropomorphism inherited from older Near Eastern offering language and reinterpreted in Israel to signify divine acceptance, not divine appetite. There is no serious proposal of homonymy; the polysemy is contextual breadth of one word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. רֵיחַlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. רֵיחַlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. רֵיחַlexicon
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible (1991)commentary
  • John E. Hartley, Leviticus, Word Biblical Commentary (1992)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of רֵיחַ

m s construct

רֵיחַ

Gen 8:21, Gen 27:27, Gen 27:27, Gen 27:27, Exo 29:18, Exo 29:25, Exo 29:41, Lev 1:9

m s absolute

רֵיחַ

Sng 1:3, Sng 2:13, Sng 7:13, Hos 14:6

m s construct

רֵיחוֹ

Sng 1:12, Jer 48:11

m s construct

רֵיחֵנוּ

Exo 5:21