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ra'am

רָעַם

HebrewH7481“thunder, roar, ...”

Appears 13 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Sa 1:61Sa 2:101Sa 7:102Sa 22:141Ch 16:32Job 37:4Job 37:5Job 40:9Psa 18:13(14)Psa 29:3Psa 96:11Psa 98:7Ezk 27:35
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-graderah-AHMverb

What ra'am means

1

to thunder or roar: to give out a loud, rolling, resonant sound, whether God thundering from the heavens or the sea roaring

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

At its core this word imitates a sound: the deep, rolling boom of a thunderstorm. When God is the one who does it, he thunders from the sky; when the sea does it, it roars. The same booming, resonant noise is in view either way.

The word clusters in Israel's oldest storm poetry, and that is no accident. In the surrounding nations the storm-god's signature was his thunder-voice, and the poems of the Bible deliberately claim that very picture for the LORD: the sound of the storm is the sound of him speaking (קוֹל). When he thunders from heaven, the writers are announcing that the power every other people credited to their weather-god belongs to him alone.

It sits close to other Hebrew words for a loud, sustained sound, such as the roar of a lion or of God himself (שָׁאַג) and the surging roar of the sea (הָמָה). What sets this word apart is the specific image of thunder.

One twist is worth noticing. When the sea roars in the praise psalms, it is being summoned to celebrate, standing alongside the fields and the trees in worship. Older stories heard the roaring sea as a threat, the voice of chaos to be tamed; here that same roar has become an act of joy.

Nuances

1afor God to thunder: to speak and act in the overwhelming voice of the storm
1Sa 2:101Sa 7:102Sa 22:14Job 37:4Job 37:5Job 40:9Psa 18:13(14)Psa 29:3
1bfor the sea and the created world to roar, called out to sound in praise
1Ch 16:32Psa 96:11Psa 98:7
2

to stir up inner turmoil: to provoke someone to fret and grieve, or for the face to be convulsed with distress

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This is the rarer, inward side of the same root: the storm moves indoors. Instead of the sky rumbling, a person's insides are churned up. In the story of Hannah her rival deliberately needles her into fretting and tears (1 Samuel 1:6), and in later Jewish usage this root became an ordinary word for grumbling and grievance.

The overlap with the storm sense is close but real, and it shades toward the idea of trembling agitation (רָגַז) rather than a clap of thunder. One further verse pictures faces convulsed with shock at the fall of a great trading city, the body itself thrown into turmoil.

There is a quiet literary echo worth flagging. Hannah's song frames the whole birth narrative: she is thundered at in the opening chapter, and ten verses later she celebrates the God who thunders for her. The same word carries both the petty cruelty done to her and the cosmic verdict spoken on her behalf.

Nuances

2ato provoke someone to fretting and grief; to needle into distress
1Sa 1:6
1Sa 1:6

How to read the verb in 1 Samuel 1:6, where Peninnah acts toward Hannah.

  • majorityCausative: the rival provoked Hannah, making her fret and grieve.; R. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC 10, 1983), on 1:6; R. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel (NAC 7, 1996), on 1:6
  • minorityReflexive under Aramaic influence: so that Hannah complained aloud.; P. K. McCarter Jr., I Samuel (AB 8, 1980), on 1:6
2bfor the face to be convulsed, twisted in shock and dismay
CertaintyObscure
Ezk 27:35
Ezk 27:35

What the phrase describing the onlookers' faces means in Ezekiel 27:35.

  • majorityTheir faces are convulsed or twisted in shock, an inner turmoil showing on the body (keeping the traditional Hebrew text).; D. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT, 1997-98), on 27:35
  • minorityTheir faces wept, reflecting a slightly different Hebrew word behind the Greek translation.; Septuagint, Ezekiel 27:35

What scholars say about ra'am

The major lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH, TWOT, TDOT) all list רָעַם as a single onomatopoeic root, with a Qal describing something making noise (the sea in Ps 96:11 // 1 Chr 16:32; Ps 98:7, plus the crux Ezek 27:35) and a Hiphil used almost entirely of YHWH thundering (1 Sam 2:10; 7:10; 2 Sam 22:14 // Ps 18:14; Ps 29:3; Job 37:4, 5; 40:9), the lone exception being Peninnah in 1 Sam 1:6. BDB flags the two agitation cases as dubious and possibly corrupt, and the older Gesenius tradition posited a broader primitive sense of agitation from which thunder specialized. The cognates favor one root: Akkadian ramamu (CAD R) covers roar, rumble, thunder, and groan of subjects from the storm-god Adad to lions, the sea, and lamenting humans, and Aramaic and Syriac preserve both the thunder and the complain/be-indignant senses in a single lexeme, which is the strongest argument against a two-roots split. Arabic uses raʿd (not raʿm) for thunder, itself carrying a thunder/tremble double sense, suggesting an expressive onomatopoeic base. The root is theologically weighted by its concentration in early storm-theophany poetry, where, on the reconstruction of Cross, Schwemer, and Green, YHWH is portrayed with the storm-vocabulary of Baal-Haddu as a polemical takeover; Ps 29:3 supplies the interpretive key that the sevenfold voice of YHWH is thunder, and Job 40:9 turns the verb back on Job. The Septuagint bifurcates the range consistently: every clear thunder case becomes brontao / bronte, while the agitation and roar cases go to the athumia word-family (1 Sam 1:6), saleuo (Ps 95:11 LXX), or a weeping reading (Ezek 27:35), evidence that Greek-speaking Jews already felt the two poles as distinct. Tsumura notes the Hiphil inclusio framing the Samuel birth narrative (Peninnah thunders at Hannah in 1:6; YHWH thunders for her in 2:10). Post-biblical Hebrew splits the afterlife: the concrete thunder sense survives in liturgy while the agitation sense specializes into complaint (hitraʿem, tarʿomet).

Where scholars disagree about ra'am

Whether רָעַם is one word with a wide range (thunder and roar shading into inner agitation) or two unrelated words that merely look alike.

  • majorityA single onomatopoeic root whose thunder-and-roar meaning extends naturally to inner agitation; the same double range shows up in the Akkadian and Aramaic cognates.; L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, HALOT, s.v. רעם; F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, BDB, s.v. רעם; D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 7, s.v. רעם
  • minorityThe two hard agitation verses (1 Samuel 1:6 and Ezekiel 27:35) do not reflect the thunder-word but are textually corrupt and should be emended or read apart.; C. H. Cornill, Das Buch des Propheten Ezechiel (Leipzig, 1886), on Ezek 27:35; H. P. Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (ICC, 1899), on 1 Sam 1:6
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), s.v. רעםlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, 1994-2000), s.v. רעםlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 7 (Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), s.v. רעםlexicon
  • R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., B. K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody, 1980), §2189dictionary
  • G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, H.-J. Fabry, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Eerdmans), s.v. רעםdictionary
  • The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), vol. R (1999), s.v. ramamulexicon
  • F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard, 1973)monograph
  • D. Schwemer, Die Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens (Harrassowitz, 2001)monograph
  • A. R. W. Green, The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East (Eisenbrauns, 2003)monograph
  • D. T. Tsumura, The First Book of Samuel (NICOT, 2007)commentary
  • P. K. McCarter Jr., I Samuel (AB 8, 1980)commentary
  • D. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT, 1997-98)commentary
  • D. J. A. Clines, Job 38-42 (WBC 18B, 2011)commentary

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

All attested forms of רָעַם

hiphil jussive 3ms

יַרְעֵם

1Sa 2:10, 2Sa 22:14, Job 37:4, Job 37:5

qal imperfect 3ms

יִרְעַם

1Ch 16:32, Psa 96:11, Psa 98:7

hiphil consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיַּרְעֵם

1Sa 7:10, Psa 18:13

hiphil infinitive-construct construct

הַרְּעִמָ

1Sa 1:6

hiphil jussive 2ms

תַרְעֵם

Job 40:9

hiphil perfect 3ms

הִרְעִים

Psa 29:3

qal perfect 3cp

רָעֲמוּ

Ezk 27:35