רָקַע
to beat out
‘to beat out’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
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”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
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.
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.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Construct 3 times (27%)
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular 1 time (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H7554 appears — 11 distinct verses across 8 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.
Exodus 1 verse
Numbers 1 verse
2 Samuel 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 1 verse
Isaiah 3 verses
- Isaiah 40:19 יְרַקְּעֶ֑/נּוּ Piel impf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms The image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains.
- Isaiah 42:5 רֹקַ֥ע Qal ptcp.act ms cs Thus says God Yahweh, he who created the heavens, and stretched them forth; he who spread abroad the earth and that which comes out of it; he who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk therein:
- Isaiah 44:24 רֹקַ֥ע Qal ptcp.act ms cs Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb: I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who stretches forth the heavens alone; who spreads abroad the earth (who is with me?);
Jeremiah 1 verse
Ezekiel 2 verses
- Ezekiel 6:11 וּ/רְקַ֤ע conj + Qal impv 2ms Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Smite with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, Alas! because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.
- Ezekiel 25:6 וְ/רַקְעֲ/ךָ֖ conj + Qal inf.cs + sfx pers 2ms For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have clapped your hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the despite of your soul against the land of Israel;
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.
רקע — transliterated râqaʻ — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to beat out.” As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 4 stems (Qal, Piel, and more). The Hebrew Bible uses it across 11 verses — uncommon. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Isaiah. Debuting at Exodus 39:3, it then recurs through the corpus. See the sense tree, 11-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7554 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 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 11 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 64%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 18%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 18%
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: Alone that spreadeth abroad 1×, Did spread them abroad 1×, Hast thou with him spread out 1×
- American Standard Version: Alone 1×, Beaten into plates 1×, Canst thou with him spread out 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Spread out 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: One having beaten out 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7554 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7554 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7554 across 11 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7554 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel).
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 4 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
- Impf. 1 s. sf. אֶרְקָעֵם 2 S 22:43 I will stamp them down (prob. gloss to אֲדִקֵּם preceding, cf. Bae ψ 18:43); Imv. רְקַע בְּרַגְלְךָ Ez 6:11 beat (stamp) with thy foot, in token of contemptuous pleasure, cf. Da (‖ הַכֵּה בְכַפְּךָ); so Inf. cstr. sf. רַקְעֲךָ בְּרָ֑גֶל 25:6 (‖ מַחְאֲךָ יָד); Pt. act. as subst. cstr. (Ges§ 65d) רֹקַע הָאָרֶץ (i.e. י׳) he that (beateth out) spreadeth out the earth Is 42:5, רֹקַע הָא׳ 44:24, רוֹקַע הָא׳ ψ 136:6. e.g. 2 Samuel 22:43
Piel
- Impf. 3 ms. sf. בַּזָּהָב יְרַקְּעֶנּוּ Is 40:19 a goldsmith with gold over-layeth it (lit. beateth it out); 3 mpl. וַיְרַקְּעוּ אֶת־ פַּחֵי הַזָּהָב Ex 39:3 they beat out the plates of gold; sf. וַיְרַקְּעוּם צִפּוּי Nu 17:4 they beat them out as plating. e.g. Isaiah 40:19
Pual
- Pt. כֶּסֶף מְרֻקָּ֑ע Je 10:9 silver beaten out. e.g. Jeremiah 10:9
Hiphil
- Impf. 2 ms. תַּרְקִיעַ עִמּוֹ לִשְׁחָקִים Jb 37:18 canst thou make with (= like) him a spreading for clouds (spread out clouds; cf. רָקִיעַ)? e.g. Job 37:18
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. beat, stamp, beat out, spread out (NH id.; Hiph., Aramaic רְקַע Aph., both spread out, and deriv.; Syriac ܪܩܰܥ press down (Lk 6:38 𝔊), spread out, also consolidate; Arabic رَقَعَ patch, put on a patch, repair, cf. Chr-Pal. ܡܪܩܥܐ patch, ܡܪܘܩܥܢܝܬܐ swaddling-bands, SchwallyIdiot. 90; Ph. מרקע platter, or bowl, of gold CISi. 90, 1);—
— 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.
רָקַע
- (b. h.) [to beat,] to stretch, spread.
- 1. same. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXLVI, 5 משמתחתי … והִרְקַעְתִּי הארץ וכ׳ since I stretched the heaven and spread the land (over the water), have they ever moved from their position?
- 2. (in enigmatic speech, denom. of רָקִיעַ) to make to look blue. Erub. 53ᵇ הַרְקִיעוּ Ms. M. (ed. אַרְקִיעוּ), v. זָהָב; [Rashi: spread the glowing coals].—[Tosef. B. Bath. XI, 9 שהרקיע ed. Zuck., read: שהִרְקִיב.]
רְקַע
- Af. אַרְקַע same. Targ. Job XXXVII, 18 תַּרְקַע (ed. Wil. תִּרְ׳).
- to patch.—Part. pass. מְרַקַּע. Targ. Josh. IX, 5 ed. Wil. מְרַקְּעִין (Ar. מְרַקְּעָן; ed. Lag. מרקיעין, corr. acc.; some ed. מְרוּקָּעִין Hebraism; h. text מטלאות).—V. מַרְקוֹעַ II.
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 10 distinct written forms H7554 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| רֹקַ֥ע | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Isaiah 42:5 | 2 |
| אֶרְקָעֵֽ/ם | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | 2 Samuel 22:43 | 1 |
| וְ/רַקְעֲ/ךָ֖ | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Ezekiel 25:6 | 1 |
| וַֽ/יְרַקְּע֖וּ/ם | Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Numbers 16:39 | 1 |
| וַֽ/יְרַקְּע֞וּ | Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Exodus 39:3 | 1 |
| וּ/רְקַ֤ע | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezekiel 6:11 | 1 |
| יְרַקְּעֶ֑/נּוּ | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 40:19 | 1 |
| לְ/רֹקַ֣ע | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 136:6 | 1 |
| מְרֻקָּ֞ע | Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 10:9 | 1 |
| תַּרְקִ֣יעַ | Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 37:18 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7554, 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 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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
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.
