רִשְׁעָה
wickedness
‘wickedness’ 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 Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H7564 appears in the Book of Ezekiel — 5 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.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 5:6 לְ/רִשְׁעָה֙ prep + n c fs She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.
- Ezekiel 18:20 וְ/רִשְׁעַ֥ת conj + n c fs cs The soul who sins, he shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.
- Ezekiel 18:27 מֵֽ/רִשְׁעָת/וֹ֙ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms Again, when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
- Ezekiel 33:12 וְ/רִשְׁעַ֤ת conj + n c fs cs You, son of man, tell the children of your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his disobedience; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turns from his wickedness; neither shall he who is righteous be able to live thereby in the day that he sins.
- Ezekiel 33:19 מֵֽ/רִשְׁעָת֔/וֹ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms When the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.
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 noun רשעה centers on the idea of “wickedness.” Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. It turns up in 15 verses across 6 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Ezekiel (33%), then Deuteronomy and Malachi. First canonically at Deuteronomy 9:4, it enters the text early. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7564 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,836
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,836 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 15 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ezekiel 5 verses 33%
- Deuteronomy 3 verses 20%
- Malachi 3 verses 20%
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 15 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 10 verses · 67%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 20%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 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: Wickedness 10×
- American Standard Version: Wickedness 9×
- Berean Standard Bible: Wickedness 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Wickedness 11×, Wickedness of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7564 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H7564 across 15 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7564 across 13 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7564 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 3 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.
- 1. wickedness in civil relations, Dt 25:2; Pr 13:6; Is 9:17; בְּרִשְׁעָתוֹ יפּל רָשָׁע Pr 11:5. e.g. Deuteronomy 25:2
- 2. wickedness of enemies, גְּבוּל ר׳ Mal 1:4 (Edom); זאת הר׳ Zc 5:8 (personif.); לְרִשְׁעָה Ez 5:6 (del. Co); רִשְׁעַת הגוים Dt 9:4, 5. e.g. Malachi 1:4
- 3. wickedness, ethical and religious, עשׂה ר׳ Mal 3:15, 19, שׁוּב מֵרִשְׁעָתוֹ Ez 18:27; 33:19; רִשְׁעַת (הָ)רָשָׁע 18:20; 33:12. e.g. Malachi 3:15
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
n.f. wickedness;—abs. ר׳ Is 9:17 +; cstr. רִשְׁעַת Dt 9:4 +; sf. רִשְׁעָתוֹ Dt 25:2 +;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רשע (reshaʻ) (H7562) — wickedness.
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.
רִשְׁעָה
- (b. h.) same, wickedness, guilt, indictable offense. Snh. 21ᵃ איש חכם לר׳ ‘a wise man’ (II Sam. XIII, 3) wise for wickedness. Koh. R. to III, 18 כל העובר … מדת רִשְׁעָתוֹ וכ׳ when one commits a sin shortly before his death, it is as if the measure of his wickedness wanted only this sin, and he completed it; a. fr.—Pl. (fr. רִשְׁעוּת) רִשְׁעִיּוֹת. Keth. 37ᵃ, a. fr. (ref. to Deut. XXV, 2) משום רשעה אחת … שתי ר׳ thou must punish him for one wrong, but not for two, i.e. not condemn him to corporal punishment and pecuniary restitution for the same act. Y. Ter. VII, beg. 44ᶜ; Y. Keth. III, 27ᵇ top במי שיש בו שתי ר׳ וכ׳ the text (Deut. l. c.) speaks of one against whom there are two indictments (one criminal and one pecuniary). Snh. 105ᵃ (ref. to רשעתים, Jud. III, 8) דעבד שתי ר׳ וכ׳ he did Israel two wrongs; Tanḥ. D’barim 3, v. רָשַׁע; a. fr.—[Snh. 112ᵃ דרשעיות, read: דרַשְׁעָנִיּוֹת.] e.g. 2 Samuel 13:3
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 13 distinct written forms H7564 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| רִשְׁעָ֔ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 9:18 | 3 |
| בְּ/רִשְׁעַ֣ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Deuteronomy 9:5 | 1 |
| הָ/רִשְׁעָ֔ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Zechariah 5:8 | 1 |
| וְ/רִשְׁעַ֤ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 33:12 | 1 |
| וְ/רִשְׁעַ֥ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 18:20 | 1 |
| וְ֝/רִשְׁעָ֗ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 13:6 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/רִשְׁעַת֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Deuteronomy 9:4 | 1 |
| וּ֝/בְ/רִשְׁעָת֗/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Proverbs 11:5 | 1 |
| לְ/רִשְׁעָה֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Ezekiel 5:6 | 1 |
| מֵֽ/רִשְׁעָת/וֹ֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 18:27 | 1 |
| מֵֽ/רִשְׁעָת֔/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Ezekiel 33:19 | 1 |
| רִשְׁעָה֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Malachi 4:1 | 1 |
| רִשְׁעָת֖/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Deuteronomy 25:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7564, 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
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 → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 14 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 15 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.
