רָחָב
wide
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 10 times (48%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Construct 5 times (24%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Construct 4 times (19%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 time (5%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (5%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 21 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7342 appears — 21 distinct verses across 11 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Genesis 1 verse
Exodus 1 verse
Judges 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
Nehemiah 5 verses
- Nehemiah 3:8 הָ/רְחָבָֽה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs Next to him repaired Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths. Next to him repaired Hananiah one of the perfumers, and they fortified Jerusalem even to the broad wall.
- Nehemiah 4:19 וּ/רְחָבָ֑ה conj + Adjective Adjective fs I said to the nobles, and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated on the wall, one far from another:
- Nehemiah 7:4 רַחֲבַ֤ת adj Adjective fs cs Now the city was wide and large; but the people were few therein, and the houses were not built.
- Nehemiah 9:35 הָ/רְחָבָ֧ה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs For they have not served you in their kingdom, and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and fat land which you gave before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.
- Nehemiah 12:38 הָ/רְחָבָֽה ptcl def.art + Adjective Adjective fs The other company of those who gave thanks went to meet them, and I after them, with the half of the people, on the wall, above the tower of the furnaces, even to the broad wall,
Job 2 verses
Psalms 4 verses
- Psalms 101:5 וּ/רְחַ֣ב conj + Adjective Adjective ms cs I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won't tolerate one who is haughty and conceited.
- Psalms 104:25 וּ/רְחַ֪ב conj + Adjective Adjective ms cs There is the sea, great and wide, In which are innumerable living things, Both small and large animals.
- Psalms 119:45 בָ/רְחָבָ֑ה prep det + Adjective Adjective fs I will walk in liberty, For I have sought your precepts.
- Psalms 119:96 רְחָבָ֖ה adj Adjective fs I have seen a limit to all perfection, But your commands are boundless.
Proverbs 2 verses
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 22:18 רַחֲבַ֣ת adj Adjective fs cs He will surely wind you round and round, [and toss you] like a ball into a large country; there shall you die, and there shall be the chariots of your glory, you shame of your lord's house.
- Isaiah 33:21 רַחֲבֵ֣י adj Adjective mp cs But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams, in which shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.
Jeremiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
רחב — transliterated râchâb — is a Hebrew adjective carrying the sense “wide.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 34:21. Spanning 21 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Sharing its root, it stands alongside רחב, מרחב and רחב. See the sense tree, 21-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7342 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 21
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 21 distinct verses.
- 11 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 11 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,462
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 21 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 21 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 14 verses · 67%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 5 verses · 24%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 10%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Large 6×, Broad 5×, Proud 2×
- American Standard Version†: Broad 5×, Large 5×, Proud 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Spacious 4×, Wide 4×, Proud 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Broad 4×, Broad of 3×, Wide 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7342 across 21† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7342 across 22† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7342 across 20† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7342 across 22† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 0 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
רחב I wide, broad
רחב II f. harlot in Jericho
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. adj. wide, broad;—abs. ר׳ Jb 30:14; cstr. רְחַב Pr 21:4 +; fs. רְחָבָה Ex 3:8 +; cstr. רַחֲבַת Gn 34:21 +; mpl. cstr. רַחֲבֵי Is 33:21;—wide, broad, spacious, of land Ex 3:8 (J), Ne 9:35, רַחֲבַת יָדַיִם, etc., Gn 34:21 + 6 times, v. יָד 3 d; ר׳ מִנִּי־יָם Jb 11:9 (of greatness of God, ‖ אֲרֻכָּה מֵאֶרֶץ); בָּֽרְחָבָה as subst. ψ 119:45 in a wide, roomy, space (fig.); פֶּרֶץ ר׳ Jb 30:14 (sim.); of cup Ez 23:32 (in fig.; + הָעֲמֻקָּה); of wall (= thick) Je 51:58; specif., in Jerusalem (as n.pr.) הַחוֹמָה הָֽר׳ Ne 3:8; 12:38; fig. extensive, of work, undertaking, מְלָאכָה, Ne 4:13 (+ הַרְבֵּה); of י׳’s commandment ψ 119:96 (i.e. unlimited, measureless); רְחַב לֵבָב 101:5 i.e. exultant, arrogant (‖ גְּבַהּ־עֵינַיִם), so ר׳ לֵב Pr 21:4 (‖ רוּם־ע׳); רְחַב נֶפֶשׁ Pr 28:25 i.e. greedy (cf. רחב אולת Ecclus 47:23c, in play on רְחַבְעָם).
II. n.pr.f. harlot in Jericho;—Jos 2:1, 3; 6:17, 23, 25 (all JE); Ρααβ (so Heb 3:11; Jas 2:25, but Mt 1:5 Ραχαβ).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רחב (râchab) (H7337) — to grow wide.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
רָחָב I
- (b. h.) pr. n. f. Rahab, a woman of Jericho who received the Israelitish spies. Zeb. 116ᵃ, sq. Sot. 34ᵃ. Meg. 15ᵃ; Taan. 5ᵇ; a. fr.
רָחַב
- (b. h.) to be wide.
- 1. (neut. verb) (neut. verb) to widen, be broader; to extend. Lev. R. s. 31 היו מקטינות … ומַרְחִיבוֹת וכ׳ (the windows of the Temple) became narrow towards the inside and wider towards the outside, in order to send light forth to the world; Pesik. Ḳumi, p. 145ᵃ, sq. Sifré Deut. s. 1; Yalk. Zech. 575 מַרְחֶבֶת, v. infra. Yalk. Is. 302, v. פָּתָה.
- 2. to broaden, widen; (with דעת) to comfort, gratify. Ber. 57ᵇ שלשה מַרְחִיבִין דעתו וכ׳ three things give a man comfort: a nice dwelling &c.
- 3. to amplify. B. Bath. 61ᵇ, v. מֵצַר.
- to be enlarged, extend. Cant. R. to VII, 5 עתידה … מִתְרַחֶבֶת וכ׳ Jerusalem will be enlarged on all sides; Sifré l. c.; Yalk. Zech. l. c. מרחבת.
רָחָב II
- preced.) wide, broad. Midd. IV, 7 מה ארי צר … ור׳ מלפניו וכ׳ (not ורוחב) as the lion’s body is narrow behind and wide in front, so was the Temple &c.; a. fr.—נפש ר׳ (wide desire,) ambition, greed, opp. שפלה. Ab. V, 19; a. e.—יד ר׳, v. יָד.—Pl. רְחָבִים, רְחָבִין; רְחָבוֹת. Tanḥ. B’haʿăl. 5 שהיו ר׳ מבחוץ וכ׳ they (the Temple windows) were wide without &c., v. preced.; Tanḥ. T’tsav. 6; Num. R. s. 15, beg. Y. Sot. IX, 24ᵃ bot., v. צַר; a. fr.
רְחַב
- , esp. (with or sub. נפשא) ambitious, greedy. Targ. Prov. XXVIII, 25 גברא ר׳ (Bxt. ר׳ נפשא; Ms. רעיינא, read: רחב עיינא or רחב רעיינא).
רֹחַב
- preced. wds.) width. Midd. II, 6 אורך … על ר׳ וכ׳ one hundred and twenty-five cubits in length by eleven in width. Ib. IV, 1 ורָחְבּוֹ וכ׳ and its width was ten cubits. Tam. 29ᵇ; Shek. VIII, 5 ורָחְבָּהּ; a. fr.—Sifré Deut. 120 בר׳ יד with liberality.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 18 distinct written forms H7342 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7342, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- מרחב merchâb H4800 wide place
- רחב rachab H7338 breadth
- רחב rᵉchôb H7339 plaza
- רחב rôchab H7341 breadth
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 3 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 21 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 34:21
- Exodus 3:8
- Judges 18:10
- 1 Chronicles 4:40
- Job 11:9
- Psalms 101:5
- Proverbs 21:4
- Isaiah 22:18
- Ezekiel 23:32
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
