StrongerBible

riqmah

רִקְמָה

HebrewH7553“embroidery, needlework, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jdg 5:30 (2×)1Ch 29:2Psa 45:14(15)Ezk 16:10Ezk 16:13Ezk 16:18Ezk 17:3Ezk 26:16Ezk 27:7Ezk 27:16Ezk 27:24
Root family
Word studyrik-MAHnoun

What riqmah means

multicolored work: material in which several colors are worked into one patterned piece, most often costly cloth

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The word names a look rather than a technique: several colors worked together into one patterned surface. Nine of its eleven appearances describe cloth, and in every one of them the cloth is expensive. Plain fabric was ordinary, but getting more than one color into a single piece took dyed thread, skill, and time, so this material turns up wherever wealth and rank are on display.

The settings are consistent:

  • a bride dressed by God in the finest clothing available
  • a princess led to the king in her wedding procession
  • luxury goods moving through the harbor of a rich trading city
  • robes that shocked rulers strip off in mourning
  • plunder a general's mother imagines her son bringing home

Two passages stretch the word past cloth. In Ezekiel 17:3 it describes the varied coloring of a great eagle's feathers, and in 1 Chronicles 29:2 it names stone of mixed color that David stockpiled for the temple. Neither feathers nor stone can be woven or sewn, which shows that what the word is really about is the patterned mix of colors itself.

A verb from the same root (רָקַם) covers the making of such material. In the lists where this word appears it sits beside other names for costly fabric, undyed fine linen (שֵׁשׁ) and dyed cloth (צֶבַע), each naming a different reason a piece was worth mentioning.

Nuances

1acloth worked in several colors, or a garment made from it
Jdg 5:30 (2×)Psa 45:14(15)Ezk 16:10Ezk 16:13Ezk 16:18Ezk 26:16Ezk 27:7Ezk 27:16Ezk 27:24
1bthe varied coloring of a bird's feathers
TranslatabilityApproximate
Ezk 17:3
1cstone of mixed or varied color, gathered as building material
CertaintyContested
1Ch 29:2

What scholars say about riqmah

The lexica agree on the core sense: HALOT glosses רִקְמָה as woven material of two or more colours, BDB as variegated stuff, and both register the extensions to variegated plumage (Ezek 17:3) and variegated stone (1 Chr 29:2). The chief technical question is whether the noun denotes needle-embroidery or polychrome weaving. The priestly tabernacle texts distinguish מַעֲשֵׂה חֹשֵׁב, the designer's work, from מַעֲשֵׂה רֹקֵם, the work of the רקם craftsman, and commentators on Ezekiel (Zimmerli, Greenberg, Block) generally understand the רקם terminology of multicolored weaving or tapestry rather than surface stitching; the noun's application to plumage and to stone tells against defining it by any single technique. The distribution is telling: eight of the eleven occurrences fall in Ezekiel, four of them in the Tyre oracles of chapters 26 to 27, where the term belongs to an inventory of luxury textile imports alongside שֵׁשׁ, בּוּץ, תְּכֵלֶת and אַרְגָּמָן. The reading of 1 Chr 29:2 is less secure, since אַבְנֵי־פוּךְ וְרִקְמָה is rendered either as antimony and variegated stones or as stones prepared for inlay work, and the sense of the whole list of building materials in that verse is disputed.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. רִקְמָהlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. רִקְמָהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. רִקְמָהlexicon
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1979)commentary
  • Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (Anchor Bible 22; Doubleday, 1983)commentary
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (NICOT; Eerdmans, 1997)commentary
  • Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary (OTL; Westminster John Knox, 1993)commentary

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

All attested forms of רִקְמָה

f s absolute

רִקְמָה

Jdg 5:30, 1Ch 29:2, Ezk 16:10, Ezk 16:13, Ezk 17:3, Ezk 27:7, Ezk 27:16, Ezk 27:24

f d absolute

רִקְמָתַיִם

Jdg 5:30

f p absolute

רְקָמוֹת

Psa 45:14

f s construct

רִקְמָתֵךְ

Ezk 16:18

f s construct

רִקְמָתָם

Ezk 26:16