רָחַק
to be far
‘to be far’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”). Here: ‘dir. caus. make’
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H7368 appears in the Book of Joel — 2 distinct verses. 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.
Joel
- Joel 2:20 אַרְחִ֣יק Hiphil impf 1cs But I will remove the northern army far away from you, And will drive it into a barren and desolate land, Its front into the eastern sea, And its back into the western sea; And its stench will come up, And its bad smell will rise." Surely he has done great things.
- Joel 3:6 הַרְחִיקָ֖/ם Hiphil inf.cs + sfx pers 3mp And have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, That you may remove them far from their border.
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.
The Hebrew word רחק centers on the idea of “to be far.” Where the King James Version says “far,” newer translations reach for “be far” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 56 verses — moderately common. First canonically at Genesis 21:16, it enters the text early. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. Dig into 56-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7368 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 →
- 56
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 56 distinct verses.
- 15 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 15 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #658
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 658 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 56 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 56 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 28 verses · 50%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 21 verses · 38%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 13%
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).
- King James Version: Far 10×, Be not far 4×, Is far 3×
- American Standard Version: Far 9×, Me 3×, Be not far 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Far 10×, Far away 3×, Are far 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Be far 7×, Do 5×, Is far 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7368 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 41 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7368 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 46 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 H7368 across 57 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 36 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 H7368 across 77 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 40 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
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 5 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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. ר׳ Is 59:9; La 1:16, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. יִרְחַק Dt 12:21 +, etc.; Imv. fs. רַחֲקִי Is 54:14, mpl. רַחֲקוּ Ez 11:15 רָֽחֲקוּ Ra Hi Sm Co Toy Krae; Inf. cstr. רְחֹק ψ 103:12 Ec 3:5, לְרָֽחֳקָה Ez 8:6;—be far, distant: c. מִן pers., of place Dt 12:21; 14:24, of pers., = neglect, abandon, Pr 19:7; Jb 30:10; in ψψ, of י׳, ψ 22:12, 20 (מִן pers. om), 35:22; 38:22; 71:12; of utter absence, or non-existence La 1:16, cf. Is 49:19 (abs.), subj. justice Is 59:9 (opp. הִשִּׂיג), cf. v 11 (‖ אַיִן), subj. blessing ψ 109:17; subj. עֲצַת רְשָׁעִים Jb 21:16; 22:18; c. מֵעַל pers. (י׳), of Isr. (fig.) Je 2:5, cf. Ez 44:10; = far from (land of) י׳ 11:15 (v. supr.; Krae ins. אֶרֶץ); c. מֵעַל loc. Ez 8:6 (of י׳), מִן loc. (E. from W.) ψ 103:12; c. מִן rei (fig.): תּוֹרָֽתְךָ 119:150 (opp. קרב); מִיֶּשַׁע Jb 5:4, מִעשֶׁק Is 54:14, cf. Pr 22:5; = wholly abstain from Ex 23:7 (E), so (מן inf.) Ec 3:5; abs. of י׳’s righteousness, with ref. to time Is 46:13 (‖ אחר; opp. קרב).—יִרְחַק־חֹק Mi 7:11 boundary shall become distant, i.e. territory be enlarged (? crpt., cf. We Now); ירחק חֶבֶל הַכֶּסֶף Kt Ec 12:6 be removed? Qr יֵרָתֵק be joined? 𝔊 ἀνατραπῇ, 𝔙 rumpatur, cf. 𝔖, read prob. יִנָּתֵק Pfannk Thes Ew De Siegf BuhlLex. e.g. Isaiah 59:9
Piel
- Pf. 3 ms. רִחַק Is 6:12, of י׳, send far away, acc. pers.; of people, לִבּוֹ ר׳ 29:13, c. מִן of י׳; 2 ms. רִחַקְתָּ 26:15 thou hast far extended (c. acc.) all the ends (boundaries) of the land; Impf. 3 mpl. יְרַחֲקוּ אֶת־זְנוּתָם Ez 43:9. e.g. Isaiah 6:12
Hiphil
- Pf. 3 ms. הִרִחִיק Jb 19:13 ψ 103:12, 1 s. sf. הִרְחַקְתִּים Ez 11:16, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. sf. יַרְהִיקֶנָּה Pr 22:15, 2 ms. תַּרְהִיק Jb 22:23, etc.; Imv. ms. הַרְהֵק Pr 4:24 + 2 times, הַרְחַ֑ק Jb 13:21, sf. הַרְחִיקֵהוּ 11:14; Inf. abs. הַרְחֵק Gn 21:16 +, cstr. הַרְחִיק Je 27:10, sf. הַרְחִיקָם Jo 4:6;— e.g. Job 19:13
- 1. dir. caus. make, or exhibit, distance, be gone far, subj. pers.: Gn 44:4 (J), c. מִן loc. Jos 8:4 (JE), Ju 18:22; sq. inf. cstr. הַרְחֵק לֹא תַר׳ לָלֶכֶת Ex 8:24 (J), cf. ψ 55:8; Inf. abs. as adv. = at a distance Gn 21:16 (E), c. מִן loc. Ex 33:7 (E), Jos 3:16 (JE; הַר׳ מְאֹד מִן, Qr; > Kt ב for מן). e.g. Genesis 44:4
- 2. indir. caus. remove, put far away, c. acc. pers. + מֵעַל of land Je 27:10, cf. Jo 4:6, + מֵעַל pers. Jb 19:13 and (acc. הַצְּפוֹנִי) Jo 2:20, + מִן pers. ψ 88:9, 19; + בַּגּוֹיִם Ez 11:16; c. acc. כַּף + מֵעַל pers. Jb 13:21, c. acc. דֶּרֶךְ + id. Pr 5:8; c. acc. of sin + מִן pers. 4:24; Jb 11:14 (מִן pers. om.); Pr 22:15; 30:8 ψ 103:12; + מִן loc. Jb 22:23. e.g. Jeremiah 27:10
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
vb. be, or become, far, distant (NH = BH; Assyrian especially adj. rûḳu, far; cf. Arabic رَحِيقٌ choice wine (i.e. from a distance) Frä 158; Ethiopic ርሕቀ: be far, Sab. רחק CISiv, nos. 95, 98; Aramaic רְחֵיק, רְחַק, and (often in der. spec. and deriv.) ܪܚܶܩ );—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
רָחַק
- (b. h.) to be distant, far, removed. Y’lamd. to Num. X, 29, quot. in Ar. (ref. to Ps. LXXIII, 27) מי שרוֹחֵק הק"בה וכ׳ (ed. Koh. שׁמִתְרַחֵק) he who keeps away from the Lord, so as not to repent. Sifré Num. 131 כרְחוֹק מזרח וכ׳ as far as the east is removed from the west; a. e. e.g. Psalms 73:27
- to remove; to alienate; to reject, expel; to loathe. B. Kam. 24ᵃ top, a. e. ר׳ נגיחותיו if the ox did his gorings in intervals (of three days), opp. קירב. Ib. רִיחֲקָה ראיותיה, v. רְאִיָּה. Yalk. Ps. 809 (ref. to Ps. l. c.) זה … שׁרִחֲקוּ את הקץ this alludes to Balaam and his associates, who put far off the end (the day of judgment, Num. XXIV, 17), opp. קרבו. Ber. 60ᵇ ורַחֲקֵנִי מאדם רע וכ׳ keep me far from a bad man and a bad associate. Eduy. V, 7 מעשיך יקרבוך ומעשיך יְרַחֲקוּךָ thy own doings will bring thee near (win thee friends), and thy own doings will alienate thee. Ib. VIII, 7 לרַחֵק, v. קָרֵב; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְרוּחָק; pl. מְרוּחָקִים, מְרוּחָקִין. Ib. המר׳ בזרוע, v. קָרֵב. Ber. 63ᵇ שלא היה מר׳ וכ׳ which was only twelve miles off. e.g. Numbers 24:17
- same. Sifré Num. 94 מַרְחִיקִים, v. קָרֵב. B. Bath. II, 5 מַרְחִיקִין את הסולם וכ׳ (neighbors) must keep a ladder removed from the (neighbor’s) dove-cote four cubits. Ib. 4 אלא אם כן ה׳ ממנו וכ׳ unless he places (the wall) at a distance of four cubits. Ib. 18ᵇ על המזיק להַרְחִיק את עצמו it is the duty of him who causes the damage to remove himself; (oth. opin.) על הניזק להרחיק וכ׳ he who is injured must remove himself. Ber. I, 1 כדי להרחיק וכ׳ in order to keep men away (prevent them) from sin. Snh. 103ᵇ שהִרְחִיקָה וכ׳, v. לְגִימָה. Ib. מַרְחֶקֶת וכ׳ estranges those who are near (related) &c.; a. fr.—2) to keep aloof, stay away. Ab. I, 7 הַרְחֵק משכן רע keep aloof from a bad neighbor; a. e.—[Y. Ber. I, 2ᵈ bot. והרחיק על פתחו וכ׳, read: והִרְתִּיק, v. רָתַק.]
- to remove one’s self; to become a stranger. Yeb. 109ᵃ לעולם ידבק … ויִתְרַחֵק וכ׳ man should always cling to three things, and keep aloof from three things. Snh. III, 4 קרוב ונ׳, v. קָרוֹב. Ber. 34ᵇ (ref. to Is. LVII, 19) שהיה קרוב … ונ׳ וכ׳ who came near committing a sin, and withdrew himself from it. Y’lamd. l. c., v. supra; a. e. e.g. Isaiah 57:19
רִחֵק
- Targ. Prov. XIX, 7. Targ. Ps. CIII, 12. Ib. LIII, 2. Targ. Job XXI, 16; a. fr.
- 1. to remove; to reject, loathe. Targ. Ps. CIII, 12. Targ. Ex. XXXIII, 7. Targ. Is. VI, 12. Targ. Job XXXIII, 20 (Ms. Pa.); a. fr.
- 2. to be removed. Gitt. 58ᵃ כמה מַרְחִיקְנָא וכ׳ how far am I (in my studies) from that place (the passage quoted)?
- to remove, keep off; to loathe, abominate; to make abominable. Targ. Job XI, 14. Targ. Am. VI, 3 מר׳ יום (ed. Lag. מיום, corr. acc.; h. text מנדים). Targ. Jer. II, 37 (h. text מאס). Targ. Deut. VII, 26 (h. text תעב). Targ. Job IX, 31; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְרָחַק. Targ. Mal. I, 7 (h. text מגאל).—Sabb. 128ᵇ טמאה לא מְרַחֲקָא וולדא ואי מרחקא וכ׳ an unclean animal (after giving birth) does not keep its young off, and if it does, it does not allow them to come near again (stimulation of the maternal instinct does not avail, v. רָחַם). Snh. 29ᵃ משום דמְרָחֲקָא דעתיה (an enemy cannot be witness,) because his mind is estranged (hostile), opp. מקרבא; Yalk. Num. 788; a. e.—V. מְרָחַק, מְרַחַקְתָּא.
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 51 distinct written forms H7368 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H7368, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 49 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 56 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 21:16
- Exodus 8:28
- Deuteronomy 12:21
- Joshua 3:16
- Judges 18:22
- Job 5:4
- Psalms 55:7
- Proverbs 4:24
- Ecclesiastes 3:5
- Isaiah 6:12
- Jeremiah 2:5
- Lamentations 1:16
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.
