raq

The standard lexica treat רק as a restrictive (limiting) adverb and particle built on the root meaning of thinness or smallness, hence the sense of paring down to a remainder. BDB groups its uses as (1) restrictive, only, altogether, often emphasizing a single fact, (2) restrictive in an exceptive or adversative direction, only that, save that, howbeit, frequently introducing a qualification of a preceding clause, and (3) asseverative, surely, with the word fronting a clause. HALOT and DCH give the same three-way functional spread without positing distinct homonyms; the divisions are pragmatic shades of one particle rather than separate lexemes. רק overlaps substantially with אַךְ (H389), the other principal restrictive particle, and the two are frequently interchangeable, though some studies (e.g. the discussion in TLOT and the focus-particle literature) note רק tends slightly more toward exceptive and qualifying force. In the Deuteronomistic regnal formulae the word carries a fixed concessive nuance (only the high places were not removed), a usage well documented in the lexica and the Kings commentaries.