StrongerBible

ritspah

רִצְפָּה

HebrewH7532Proper NounRizpah

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Sa 3:72Sa 21:82Sa 21:102Sa 21:11
Word studyResearch-gradereets-PAHproper noun

What ritspah means

Rizpah: Saul's concubine, the daughter of Aiah, who kept watch over the bodies of her executed sons

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Rizpah is named only four times, and always the same way: Rizpah daughter of Aiah. She was Saul's concubine, a wife of lesser standing, and every mention of her falls after his death, during the long unraveling of his household.

Her name first surfaces as an accusation. Saul's surviving son charges the family's commander, Abner, with sleeping with her, and the insult is enough to break Abner's loyalty and send him over to David. The rest of her story comes years later. David hands seven of Saul's descendants over to the Gibeonites to be put to death, her two sons among them, and the bodies are left out in the open. Rizpah spreads sackcloth on the rock beside them and stays from the start of harvest until the rains come, driving off the birds by day and the wild animals by night. When David is told what she has done, he gathers the bones of Saul and Jonathan and gives them a proper burial.

In Hebrew her name is written and said exactly like the everyday word for a floor of set stone, and for a stone glowing hot out of a fire (רִצְפָּה). Reference books usually explain the name from the second of those and gloss it "glowing coal", but the story never remarks on her name and nothing in it turns on that picture, so the gloss is a guess about where the name came from rather than a key to reading her. The Greek Old Testament writes her name as "Respha".

2Sa 3:72Sa 21:82Sa 21:102Sa 21:11

What scholars say about ritspah

BDB files the name as a separate homonym (II. רִצְפָּה), listing the four occurrences at 2 Samuel 3:7; 21:8, 10, 11 and noting the Septuagint form Ρεσφα. Gesenius, writing before the comparative argument matured, collapsed the name under a single headword together with the senses "baking stone" and "tessellated pavement", so that its sense was drawn from that same range. The modern lexicons (HALOT, s.v. רצף; DCH vol. 7) follow BDB in splitting the root, on the strength of a consonantal distinction Arabic preserves and Hebrew lost: raṣafa (with ṣād) "to pave" versus raḍafa (with ḍād) "to heat stones". The conventional gloss "glowing coal" for the name therefore attaches it to the hot-stone root rather than the paving root, but the derivation remains an inference; 2 Samuel offers no comment on the name, and the narrative makes no play on it. For the vigil in 2 Samuel 21 and its place in the Saulide succession material, the critical commentaries on Samuel are the place to work.

Where scholars disagree about ritspah

Whether the personal name Rizpah should be listed together with the common noun of the same spelling, so that its sense is drawn from that word's range, or kept as a separate item whose derivation is not asserted.

  • majorityThe name is a separate homonym, listed apart from the common noun and given no gloss of its own. The modern lexicons follow this splitting practice because the comparative evidence shows the spelling covers two originally distinct roots, one meaning to fit stones together and one meaning to be hot.; BDB, s.v. II. רִצְפָּה; HALOT, s.v. רצף
  • minorityThe name belongs under one headword with the senses "baking stone" and "tessellated pavement", so its meaning is read off that single range. This is the older treatment, formed before the comparative argument for two roots.; Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, trans. Samuel P. Tregelles, s.v. רִצְפָּה
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

  • BDB, s.v. II. רִצְפָּה (Strong's 7532)lexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, trans. Samuel P. Tregelles, s.v. רִצְפָּהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. רצףlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 7 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press), root רצףlexicon
  • P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel, Anchor Bible 9 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984)commentary

All attested forms of רִצְפָּה

f

רִצְפָּה

2Sa 3:7, 2Sa 21:8, 2Sa 21:10, 2Sa 21:11