Abundant (in quantity, size, age, number, rank, quality)
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רַב (rab) is the Hebrew adjective meaning many, great, or abundant. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 461 occurrences in the OT and covers quantity ('many people'), intensity ('great sin'), and divine attribute ('abundant in steadfast love').
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Full entry for רַב (H7227) · Open the biblical lexicon
רַב (rab) is the Hebrew adjective meaning many, great, or abundant. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 461 occurrences in the OT and covers quantity ('many people'), intensity ('great sin'), and divine attribute ('abundant in steadfast love').
The BSB source-word alignment has 455 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include many (75), and many (21), of many (20), captain (14), great (10).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 6:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (57), Ezekiel (47), Jeremiah (41), 2 Chronicles (30).
רַב (rab) is the Hebrew adjective meaning many, great, or abundant. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 461 occurrences in the OT and covers quantity ('many people'), intensity ('great sin'), and divine attribute ('abundant in steadfast love'). The word's most significant theological use is in the divine attribute formula of Exodus 34:6 — rab chesed (abundant in lovingkindness) — which becomes one of the OT's most repeated descriptions of God's character and the ground of every appeal for mercy.
Exodus 34:6 is the theological ground: 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding (rab) in steadfast love (chesed) and faithfulness.' The rab chesed (abundant lovingkindness) is the description of God that Moses receives at the renewal of the covenant after the golden calf — the moment when Israel has just committed the most catastrophic covenant violation of the wilderness period. At that precise moment, God reveals himself as rab chesed: abundant in the love that exceeds what Israel deserves. This formula (the Thirteen Attributes of God in Jewish tradition) is quoted or echoed throughout the OT: Num 14:18, Neh 9:17, Ps 86:15, 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2.
Psalm 51:1 applies rab directly to prayer for forgiveness: 'Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy (rab rachamim), blot out my transgressions.' David appeals to the rab of God's mercy — not to the size of his own repentance but to the abundance of divine mercy. The rab makes the mercy sufficient: however great the transgression (the Bathsheba episode is the context), the mercy is rab — more than enough. The proportionality is the theological point: 'according to your rab mercies' — the measure of the forgiveness is the abundance of divine mercy, not the measure of human guilt.
Isaiah 55:7 uses rab in its gospel dimension: 'Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (yarbeh lisloa).' The pardon is rab — the verb's hiphil stem makes it 'causing to multiply, making to abound.' God does not merely offer forgiveness; he multiplies it, abounds in it, makes it more than adequate for what is brought to him.
For the preacher, רַב (rab) is the word that insists the mercy of God is not rationed, calculated, or carefully metered out to deserving recipients, but abundant — the rab of a God who abounds in steadfast love.
רַב (rab) is currently indexed about 461 times in the local Hebrew index. The Pentateuch uses it for the quantity of people and things (many nations, many days) and introduces the rab chesed of Exodus 34:6. The Psalms concentrate its theological use — abundant mercy, great lovingkindness — and apply it consistently to the character of God. The prophets invoke rab in appeals to divine mercy (Jonah's frustration in Jon 4:2 is precisely that God is rab chesed and will therefore not destroy Nineveh).
The wisdom literature uses rab for the abundance of folly and wisdom and for the 'many' who go the broad way.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
The prayer of the penitent calibrated to the rab of divine mercy: 'according to the multitude (rab) of your tender mercies.' David does not appeal to his own repentance as the measure of the forgiveness — he appeals to the abundance of God's mercy as the measure. This is the foundational structure of covenant petition: the measure of the pardon is the abundance of the pardoner's mercy, not the degree of the petitioner's guilt. The rab of God's mercy is larger than the rab of David's sin.
Then the Lord passed in front of Moses and called out: “The Lord, the Lord God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,
The foundational divine self-disclosure: rab chesed (abundant in lovingkindness). The context is the covenant renewal after the golden calf — the rab chesed is proclaimed precisely when Israel has given God every reason not to be abundant in lovingkindness. The formula is not a general philosophical description of God's character but a covenantal disclosure given in the context of the people's worst failure.
The rab chesed is the answer to the golden calf — and it becomes the answer to every subsequent failure. This formula is the OT's most frequently repeated divine attribute statement.
Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
The rab pardon: the verb yarbeh (he will multiply) applied to pardon/forgiveness. God does not merely offer forgiveness as a carefully rationed response; he multiplies it, makes it rab. The call to the wicked to return is grounded in the rab-ness of the pardon: the reason to come back is not that the person has improved enough to deserve mercy but that God's pardon is rab — more than adequate for whatever they bring.
Isaiah 55 has already offered the free waters (55:1) and the covenant of steadfast love (55:3); the rab pardon is the climax of the invitation.
So he prayed to the Lord, saying, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
Jonah's complaint against the rab chesed of God: Jonah fled precisely because he knew God was rab chesed and would therefore forgive Nineveh. The same formula from Exodus 34:6 is Jonah's accusation — he does not want the rab chesed extended to Israel's enemies. God's response is to ask whether Jonah has any right to be angry (4:4, 4:9). The rab chesed that Jonah found comforting when applied to Israel is the same rab chesed that extends to Nineveh — the abundance of God's mercy is not selective by ethnicity.
But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.
The Exodus 34 formula quoted in prayer: the petitioner grounds the appeal on the known character of God — rab chesed. The psalm is a prayer of distress (v. 1 — 'I am poor and needy'), and the ground for confidence is not the petitioner's worthiness but the documented character of God. 'But you, Lord' — the contrast with the threatening situation is the character of God. The rab chesed is the source of the petition's confidence.
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Hebrew word. Abundance across multiple dimensions (quantity, quality, rank, time); often implies authority or leadership capacity.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 461 lexical occurrence verses.
רַב is built from this root:
Wisdom's influence extends beyond the individual to benefit the community. Proverbs 10:21
Greek words that correspond to or develop the meaning of this Hebrew word in the New Testament.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
רַב (rab) applied to God's mercy is one of the OT's most pastoral words because it answers the question that every person who has truly reckoned with their own sin must ask: is the mercy big enough? The answer of the OT's most repeated divine attribute formula (Exod 34:6 — rab chesed) is emphatically yes: the mercy is not merely available; it is rab — abundant, overflowing, more than adequate.
Psalm 51 shows what this looks like in practice: David does not appeal to his own sincerity or his repentance's depth as the measure of the forgiveness; he appeals to the 'multitude of God's tender mercies.' The measure of the pardon is the abundance of the pardoner. Isaiah 55:7 makes this the ground of the call to return: the invitation to the wicked is 'come back,' and the reason given is not 'you can make yourself better' but 'God will multiply the pardon.'
The NT does not abandon this rab chesed but concentrates it: 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (hyperperisseusen)' (Rom 5:20). The Greek hyperperisseusen (super-abounded) is the NT's translation of the OT's rab — grace that does not merely match sin but exceeds it. The preacher who handles rab faithfully will give the congregation a God whose mercy is too big to exhaust, not a God whose mercy runs out before the worst sin is reached.
Ps.51.1
רַב (rab) is an adjective and noun that belongs to the QaTaL pattern in Hebrew. As a noun, rab means 'captain,' 'chief,' or 'great one' — hence 'rabbi' (my great one, my master) and 'rabboni' (Mk 10:51; Jhn 20:16 — the address to Jesus). As an adjective, rab means many, much, great, or abundant. The abstract noun rob (H7230) means greatness, abundance, multitude.
The superlative or intensive is expressed by the construct rab + plural: rab rachamim (great mercies, Ps 51:1), rab chesed (great lovingkindness, Exod 34:6). The Exodus 34:6 formula uses rab chesed twice in the OT's most quoted divine attribute statement — and it is always rab that marks the abundance of the chesed: not just steadfast love, but abundant steadfast love.
The root RBB underlies several related forms: rabah (to multiply, H7235), ribbo (ten thousand, H7239), and ribboth (thousands upon thousands).
The NT's reception of rab flows through two channels. First, the Exodus 34:6 formula is quoted or echoed throughout the NT period and is the theological background for Paul's statements about grace abounding. Romans 5:20 is the NT's most direct equivalent: 'where sin increased (pleonazo), grace abounded all the more (hyperperisseusen).' The hyperperisseusen is a compound that literally means 'super-abounded beyond' — the NT reaches for a word strong enough to express what rab already expressed in Hebrew.
Second, the 'abundance' language throughout Paul's writings draws on the same root concept: 'the riches of his grace' (Eph 1:7 — ploutos, abundance), 'the riches of his glory' (Eph 1:18), 'God is rich in mercy' (Eph 2:4 — plousios). The Greek plousios (rich, wealthy) and ploutos (riches) serve as the NT's rab for divine attributes — the same abundance of divine character that the OT expressed through rab chesed.
The Magnificat (Lk 1:50 — 'his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation') and Paul's doxology (Rom 11:33 — 'Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!') are New Testament moments where the rab of the divine character breaks into open praise. Revelation 7:9 uses 'multitude that no one could number' (ochlos polys — rab in Greek's terms) to describe the harvest of the nations — the rab of the redeemed, gathered from the rab chesed that reaches further than Jonah was willing to allow.
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