To be pleased with ; specifically, to satisfy a debt
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רָצָה describes the pleased acceptance of something offered — the inner disposition of delight, satisfaction, and favorable reception. When God is the subject, rātsāh describes his pleasure in an offering (Lev 7:18; Ps 51:19), his acceptance of a person (Job 33:26), or his delight in a people (Ps 44:3).
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Full entry for רָצָה (H7521) · Open the biblical lexicon
רָצָה describes the pleased acceptance of something offered — the inner disposition of delight, satisfaction, and favorable reception. When God is the subject, rātsāh describes his pleasure in an offering (Lev 7:18; Ps 51:19), his acceptance of a person (Job 33:26), or his delight in a people (Ps 44:3).
The BSB source-word alignment has 57 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include accept them (4), be accepted (3), Be pleased (2), delight (2), I will accept (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 33:10. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (13), Leviticus (11), Job (4), 1 Chronicles (3).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
רָצָה describes the pleased acceptance of something offered — the inner disposition of delight, satisfaction, and favorable reception. When God is the subject, rātsāh describes his pleasure in an offering (Lev 7:18; Ps 51:19), his acceptance of a person (Job 33:26), or his delight in a people (Ps 44:3). When humans are the subject, it describes both appropriate acceptance (Ruth 2:13: Ruth speaking of her favorable reception by Boaz) and the satisfaction of a debt (Isa 40:2: 'her iniquity is pardoned, she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins' — the verb for paying off or being satisfied).
The cultic use of rātsāh is pervasive: sacrifices are accepted or not accepted by God depending on the offerer's heart. Leviticus repeatedly specifies that an offering must be rātsōn (the noun from the same root: acceptance, favor, will) before God. Amos 5:21-22 shows the negative: 'I hate, I despise your feasts... your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept (rātsāh) them.'
The prophetic critique of empty ritual is framed as God's refusal to rātsāh offerings that are not accompanied by justice and truth. The noun rātsōn (good pleasure, favor, acceptance, will) is perhaps even more theologically important than the verb. 'The year of the Lord's favor/acceptance' (šĕnat-rātsôn, Isa 61:2) is the jubilee-year proclamation that Jesus reads in Luke 4:19 and claims to be fulfilling.
The rātsōn of God — his accepting, favorable, pleased will — is the ground of the covenant relationship.
רָצָה is locally indexed at about 57 H7521 occurrences in the OT, with significant concentrations in the cultic texts (Leviticus, cultic Psalms), the prophetic literature (acceptance/rejection of offerings as diagnostic for covenantal faithfulness), and the wisdom literature. Its noun rātsōn (H7522) is equally important theologically and appears in key passages about divine will and favor.
Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, in whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
The climactic promise of the great penitential Psalm: after the genuine brokenness of vv.17-18, rātsāh is restored. God will delight in (rātsāh) the sacrifices again — not because the external ritual has been restored but because the internal condition that makes sacrifice genuine has been renewed. This is the positive version of Amos 5's critique: the same God who refuses empty offerings will receive and delight in the offerings of the genuinely broken and renewed heart.
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of our God’s vengeance, to comfort all who mourn,
The rātsōn-year — the year of the Lord's accepting, favorable will. The same passage Jesus reads in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19), stopping precisely after 'the year of the Lord's favor' and declaring 'today this scripture is fulfilled.' The rātsōn of the Lord is the theological ground of the gospel proclamation: the time when God is pleased to accept, to release, to heal, to restore has arrived in the person of Jesus.
For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.
The conquest of the land attributed entirely to the divine rātsāh — God's favor. The Psalm is a lament (the present situation is defeat), but it grounds its appeal in the past: the land was given not by Israel's military power but by God's pleased, accepting will. The theological structure is pure grace: rātsāh as the explanation of any status or possession that cannot be earned.
“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar! I take no pleasure in you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
Malachi's divine withdrawal of rātsāh: 'I have no pleasure in you' and 'I will not accept an offering from your hand.' The prophetic use of rātsāh (and its negation) as the diagnostic for covenantal health: God's pleasure is not unconditional, and the refusal of rātsāh is the most serious possible covenant critique — more serious even than judgment, because judgment at least acknowledges the relationship.
For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the afflicted with salvation.
The rātsāh of God in a people: the Lord 'takes pleasure' in his people. The conjunction with 'humble' is theologically instructive — the people in whom God delights are not the powerful but the humble (ʿānāw). This connects the rātsāh theology directly to the rûm reversal pattern: God is pleased with the humble, exalts the low. Divine pleasure and divine power work in the same direction.
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Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Moves from personal pleasure or approval to satisfying obligations; crucially means to accept or pardon.
Moves from personal pleasure or approval to satisfying obligations; crucially means to accept or pardon.
to be pleased with; specifically, to satisfy a debt BDB: be pleased with Usage: (be) accept(-able), accomplish, set affection, approve, consent with, delight (self), enjoy, (be, have a) favour(-able), like, observe, pardon, (be, have, take) please(-ure), reconcile self.
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 3 selected witnesses from 57 lexical occurrence verses.
רָצָה 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.
רָצָה theology centers on a question that the human heart cannot stop asking: am I accepted? Is my offering received? Does God take pleasure in me? The cultic system of the OT built an entire architecture of sacrifice, atonement, and ritual precisely to address this question — not because the question is neurotic but because it is genuinely theological. The relationship with the holy God requires the question to be answered, and rātsāh is the word for the answer: God's pleased acceptance.
The prophetic critique of empty worship (Amos 5, Malachi 1) shows what is at stake: it is not that God is tired of ceremonies but that the ceremonies are claiming a rātsāh that does not exist when the heart is divided and justice is absent. The most pastorally important rātsāh text may be Isaiah 61:2's 'year of the Lord's favor' — the rātsōn-year proclaimed as the opening act of Jesus' ministry (Luke 4:19).
The preacher who understands this text understands that Jesus does not merely announce that God is favorable but arrives as the embodiment of the rātsôn: the time when God's accepting, pleased will becomes a person who enters the brokenness. Paul's 'now is the favorable time, now is the day of salvation' (2 Cor 6:2, citing Isa 49:8, the same rātsōn root) frames the entire gospel proclamation as the announcement that the rātsāh of God is now available — the acceptance is offered, the door is open.
Isa.61.2
The noun rātsōn (H7522) from the same root is ubiquitous in contexts of divine will and pleasure: 'the will of the Lord' (rĕtsôn YHWH, Ps 40:8), 'acceptable to the Lord' (rātsōn YHWH), and 'the year of the Lord's favor' (Isa 61:2). The root also generates the concept of satisfaction: Isa 40:2's 'her warfare is ended' uses a cognate to describe the paying off (rātsāh in Hiphil: to satisfy a debt) of Israel's sins.
This double meaning — pleased acceptance and satisfied debt — is theologically pregnant: God's rātsāh is both the accepting pleasure and the condition of that acceptance (the debt that must be paid).
The NT inherits the rātsāh/rātsōn theology most directly through Luke 4:18-19 (Jesus reading Isa 61 in Nazareth), the baptism/transfiguration declarations ('this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' — euarekeō, Matt 3:17; 17:5, the NT functional equivalent of rātsāh), and Paul's citation of the 'acceptable time' in 2 Corinthians 6:2. The baptism formula is particularly significant: God's explicit declaration of rātsāh over Jesus at the opening of his ministry is the theological declaration that the servant in whom God is pleased is the same servant who will carry the sins of many (Isa 53).
The Hebrews argument about the superiority of Christ's sacrifice over the Levitical offerings is ultimately a rātsāh argument: the old offerings could not ultimately satisfy (the word is rātsāh-category: accepted, removing guilt); Christ's offering is the once-for-all sacrifice in which God's rātsāh is fully and permanently expressed (Heb 10:14: 'by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified').
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