StrongerBible

rasah

רָשָׁע

HebrewH7563“wicked, guilty, ...”

Appears 263 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 18:23Gen 18:25 (2×)Exo 2:13Exo 9:27Exo 23:1Exo 23:7Num 16:26Num 35:31Deu 25:1Deu 25:21Sa 2:91Sa 24:13(14)2Sa 4:111Ki 8:322Ch 6:232Ch 19:2Job 3:17Job 8:22Job 10:3Job 11:20Job 16:11Job 18:5Job 20:5Psa 75:8(9)Psa 101:8Psa 119:119Ezk 3:18Ezk 3:19Ezk 7:21
Root family
Word studyResearch-graderah-SHAHnoun

What rasah means

the one in the wrong: the guilty party a court rules against, and from there the wicked person whose whole life stands condemned, always the opposite of the righteous (צַדִּיק).

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

At its core this word points to a courtroom. The basic picture is two parties before a judge: one is declared in the right and one is declared in the wrong, and the rasha is the loser, the guilty party, the one the verdict goes against. The clearest cases are legal. Deuteronomy 25:1 tells judges to "acquit the righteous and condemn the rasha"; Solomon asks God to do the same from heaven; the prophets denounce the bribe that lets a judge "acquit the rasha." Many scholars now treat this legal sense as the root from which the rest grows.

From the courtroom the word reaches out into the whole of life. If God is the judge of all the earth, then to live against what he requires is to stand as the guilty party before him, whatever a human court says. So the rasha becomes the standard label for the wicked person: the one who turns from God's ways, scorns instruction, and whose life runs opposite to the righteous. Psalms and Proverbs return to this contrast hundreds of times, setting the rasha and the tsaddiq side by side as if they are the only two kinds of person there are.

Because it names a person rather than an act, the word often pictures the rasha doing things to other people: lying in wait for the innocent, oppressing the poor, plotting against the upright. In the Psalms the wicked are frequently the speaker's enemies, a social type built out of images of predators and hunters. These are not a separate word so much as the same person seen from the angle of the harm he does.

The wisdom books then test the whole picture. Job protests that God "destroys both the blameless and the rasha" alike, and Qohelet observes a righteous man perishing in his righteousness while a rasha lives long in his wrongdoing. They keep the category but deny that present good fortune reliably tells you who is who. The abstract noun for the quality or conduct itself is a separate word (רֶשַׁע, H7562).

Nuances

1athe guilty party: the one in the wrong in a legal dispute, the person a court rules against or who deserves a sentence.
Gen 18:23Gen 18:25 (2×)Exo 2:13Exo 9:27Exo 23:1Exo 23:7Num 35:31Deu 25:1Deu 25:22Sa 4:111Ki 8:322Ch 6:23
1bthe wicked person: one whose settled life and conduct stand against what God requires, the enduring foil of the righteous.
Psa 1:1Psa 1:4Psa 1:5Psa 1:6Psa 7:9Psa 9:16Psa 9:17Psa 32:10Psa 34:21Psa 37:10Psa 37:12Psa 37:16
1cthe wrongdoer as enemy and oppressor: the wicked seen as the active threat to the innocent, the violent or scheming foe of the upright.
Psa 3:7Psa 9:5Psa 10:2Psa 10:3Psa 10:4Psa 10:13Psa 10:15Psa 11:2Psa 17:9Psa 17:13Psa 26:5Psa 28:3

What scholars say about rasah

The lexica agree the root has no secure cognate outside Hebrew and Aramaic, so the word must be read from its internal Hebrew patterning rather than from etymology: HALOT records a disputed Arabic comparison ("to be loose, lax") but cautions against over-reading it, and BDB lists it as a primitive root with little comparative material. The proposed concrete sense of "looseness" has been widely set aside since James Barr's Comparative Philology (1968). The current scholarly default, argued by C. van Leeuwen (TLOT) and Cornelis Van Dam (NIDOTTE) and reflected in HALOT's ordering, treats the legal sense ("guilty, the party in the wrong") as primary, with the moral, social, and religious senses developing from it; the declarative use of the related causative verb "to declare/condemn as guilty" (Deuteronomy 25:1; 1 Kings 8:32; Proverbs 17:15) and the fixed antithesis with צַדִּיק (TDOT, van Leeuwen) are its strongest support, and Pietro Bovati (Re-Establishing Justice, 1994) and James Prothro (Both Judge and Justifier, 2018) develop the courtroom frame across the canon. A moderating line (Klaus Koch's work on the deed-consequence connection; Moshe Weinfeld's Social Justice in Ancient Israel; John Goldingay's Psalms commentary) holds that the legal sense is one register among several (communal, socio-economic, ethical) rather than the master frame. The wisdom books are where the rasha/tsaddiq binary is built and then tested: Michael Fox and Bruce Waltke debate whether Proverbs' wicked is a stylized moral type or a covenant-breaker, while Job (Clines, Habel, Newsom) and Ecclesiastes (Seow, Crenshaw, Longman) keep the category but deny it reliably tracks fate. Ezekiel 18 and 33 (Zimmerli, Block) are the locus classicus for the rasha as an individually responsible person who can still turn and live.

Where scholars disagree about rasah

Whether the courtroom is the master frame for the whole word, so that its moral, social, and religious uses are projections of the legal verdict onto life, or whether the legal sense is only one register among several (communal, socio-economic, ethical) with no single frame governing the rest.

  • majorityThe forensic, courtroom sense is primary and controls the field: the rasha is fundamentally the party in the wrong, the one to be condemned, and the moral and religious senses develop from that.; C. van Leeuwen, 'רשׁע rāšāʿ,' in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT); Pietro Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice, JSOTSup 105 (1994); James B. Prothro, Both Judge and Justifier, WUNT II/461 (2018)
  • minorityThe legal sense is one register among several; the word names a broader breach of communal, covenantal, or moral order that a verdict only ratifies, and the forensic frame should not be made to govern the rest.; Klaus Koch, 'Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?' in Theodicy in the Old Testament (1983); Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem/Minneapolis: Magnes/Fortress, 1995); John Goldingay, Psalms, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006-2008)

Whether the root has any reliable meaning recoverable from related languages, in particular the proposed Arabic word for "looseness, laxity."

  • majorityNo reliable cognate outside Hebrew and Aramaic controls the meaning; the older appeal to an Arabic "looseness" sense is an unwarranted semantic leap, so the word must be read from its internal Hebrew patterning.; James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968); DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. רשׁע; C. van Leeuwen, 'רשׁע rāšāʿ,' in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT)
  • minorityAn original concrete sense of physical "looseness" or "laxity" lies behind the word, extended to moral disorder and then wickedness.; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. רשׁע (recording the Arabic comparison with caution)
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

  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. רשׁעlexicon
  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. רשׁעlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. רשׁעlexicon
  • C. van Leeuwen, 'רשׁע rāšāʿ to be guilty,' in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (TLOT), ed. Jenni and Westermanndictionary
  • Cornelis Van Dam, 'רשׁע,' in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), vol. 3dictionary
  • Pietro Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the Hebrew Bible, JSOTSup 105 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994)monograph
  • James B. Prothro, Both Judge and Justifier: Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul, WUNT II/461 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018)monograph
  • Klaus Koch, 'Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?' in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), pp. 57-87monograph
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Yale Bible 18B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, NICOT, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004-2005)commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job, Word Biblical Commentary, 3 vols. (Dallas/Nashville: Word/Nelson, 1989-2011)commentary
  • C.-L. Seow, Ecclesiastes, Anchor Bible 18C (New York: Doubleday, 1997)commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel, Hermeneia, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979-1983)commentary

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

All attested forms of רָשָׁע

m p absolute

רְשָׁעִים

Exo 9:27, Num 16:26, 1Sa 2:9, 1Sa 24:13, 2Sa 4:11, Job 3:17, Job 8:22, Job 10:3

m s absolute

רָשָׁע

Gen 18:23, Gen 18:25, Gen 18:25, Exo 2:13, Exo 23:1, Exo 23:7, Num 35:31, Deu 25:1

m p construct

רִשְׁעֵי

Psa 75:8, Psa 101:8, Psa 119:119, Ezk 7:21

f s absolute

רְשָׁעָה

Ezk 3:18, Ezk 3:19