Rāʿaš describes shaking or related motion, but mountains, grain, a horse and prophetic heavens provide different referents. Psalm 46:3 portrays mountains quaking amid surging waters while the psalm confesses God as refuge in trouble.
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Full entry for רָעַשׁ (H7493) · Open the biblical lexicon
Rāʿaš describes shaking or related motion, but mountains, grain, a horse and prophetic heavens provide different referents. Psalm 46:3 portrays mountains quaking amid surging waters while the psalm confesses God as refuge in trouble.
The BSB source-word alignment has 30 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include quake (4), and quaked (3), quakes (3), will shake (3), tremble (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Judges 5:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (6), Psalms (6), Ezekiel (5), Haggai (3).
Rāʿaš describes shaking or related motion, but mountains, grain, a horse and prophetic heavens provide different referents. Psalm 46:3 portrays mountains quaking amid surging waters while the psalm confesses God as refuge in trouble. Psalm 72:16 prays for abundant grain swaying on the hills. The motion of flourishing grain should not be defined as disaster merely because the identity also occurs in passages about upheaval.
Job 39:20 asks whether Job makes a horse leap like a locust, within divine questions about strength and the creature's behavior. Haggai 2:6 announces the Lord's shaking of heaven and earth in a prophetic address concerning the house's glory and peace. Teaching must retain the actor, object and literary setting rather than claim that every physical tremor identifies a current divine judgment. Hebrews explicitly takes up the shaking promise, but that comparison does not supply a date or authorize this study to announce the meaning of a modern earthquake.
Quaking mountains, swaying grain, a leaping horse and Haggai's promised shaking use motion for different purposes. The verb's object and literary setting prevent every use from becoming disaster imagery or a modern prophetic diagnosis.
Though their waters roar and foam and the mountains quake in the surge. Selah
Mountains quake amid roaring waters while the surrounding psalm names God as refuge and strength. The confession occurs within trouble rather than denying that upheaval can be experienced.
May there be an abundance of grain in the land; may it sway atop the hills. May its fruit trees flourish like the forests of Lebanon, the people of its cities like the grass of the field.
Grain swaying atop hills belongs to a prayer for abundance and flourishing. Its movement is not a judgment earthquake inferred from another use of the verb.
Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting?
The horse's leap appears in divine questions about its strength and battle behavior. The creature comparison should not be replaced by an assertion that all motion expresses terror.
For this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.
The Lord announces shaking of heaven, earth, sea and dry land within the house-glory address. The particular promise does not identify the cause or date of every modern upheaval.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. to undulate (as the earth, the sky, etc.; also a field of grain), particularly through fear; specifically, to spring (as a locust)
to undulate (as the earth, the sky, etc.; also a field of grain), particularly through fear; specifically, to spring (as a locust) BDB: quake Usage: make afraid, (re-) move, quake, (make to) shake, (make to) tremble.
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.
רָעַשׁ is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Psalm 46 voices refuge while portraying upheaval, so trust is not defined by denial of trouble. Psalm 72 offers a strikingly different motion: grain sways within a prayer for abundance. Job's horse adds an energetic creature comparison in questions that expose the limits of Job's control over creation. These objects keep the reader from loading every occurrence with one universal atmosphere of terror or catastrophe.
Haggai announces the Lord's promised shaking as part of an address about glory, ownership and peace. Hebrews 12:25-29 explicitly quotes the promise and interprets what can be shaken in relation to the unshakable kingdom and reverent worship. That textual connection deserves attention, but it does not authorize predicting a modern event's date or assigning guilt to people affected by a disaster. The motion verb cannot substitute for the source passage's argument, a factual account of a present event or the human review required for a proposed theological judgment.
Hag.2.6
The licensed quaking verb appears with differing objects and constructions that can express shaking, swaying or a creature's leap. A common motion family does not give mountains, grain and a horse the same theological referent or imply that all movement is fear.
Hebrews 12:25-29 explicitly quotes Haggai's shaking promise and explains it through removal of what is shakable and reception of an unshakable kingdom. This is a textual relationship rather than a license for modern disaster prediction. It does not make every rāʿaš occurrence part of that same prophetic event or assign an end-time date.