Greek word · G4473

ῥαντισμός

rantismos

sprinkling

Sprinkling, especially ritual sprinkling of a cleansing or consecrating liquid (water or blood). From rhantizō, 'to sprinkle'.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Greek New Testament. · Updated October 22, 2026

What it means

ῥαντισμός, -ῦo, ὁ

(ῥαντίζω), [in LXX for נִדָּה ;]

sprinkling: of the ceremonial sprinkling of blood for purification, Hebrews 12:24, 1 Peter 1:2 (see Hort, Pe., 23 ff.).†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: Sprinkling, especially ritual sprinkling of a cleansing or consecrating liquid (water or blood). From rhantizō, 'to sprinkle'.
Against the English: English 'sprinkling' sounds slight and casual, or (to many church readers) suggests a mode of baptism. In Israel's worship, sprinkling blood on people was rare and weighty. The Torah does it in three settings: the people at the making of the Sinai covenant (Exodus 24:8), priests at their ordination (Exodus 29:21; Leviticus 8:30), and a person cured of skin disease being restored to the community (Leviticus 14:7). Each marks entry into a new status before God.
How it drifted: Modern debates over sprinkling versus immersion in baptism make many readers hear a baptism-mode reference that the text's blood imagery does not suggest.
Used elsewhere in the period: LXX Numbers 19:9, 13, 20, 21: hydōr rhantismou, 'water of sprinkling', for cleansing from corpse impurity. In the NT the noun occurs only here and in Hebrews 12:24 ('the sprinkled blood that speaks better than Abel's'). Hebrews 9:19–21 retells Exodus 24 using the verb rhantizō, and 10:22 speaks of 'hearts sprinkled clean'. Exodus 24:8 LXX itself uses a different verb (kataskedannymi), but early Christian retellings, like Hebrews, describe the event with rhantizō.

Range of meaning: The act of sprinkling, especially sprinkling in ritual. It is a rare word, found almost only in sacrificial and purification settings.
Against the English: KJV and WEB keep the Hebrew-style 'blood of sprinkling'. Most modern versions write 'sprinkled blood', which is correct but less clearly tied to the Old Testament phrase 'water of sprinkling'.
Used elsewhere in the period: In Numbers 19:9, 13, 20–21 (LXX), hydōr rhantismou, 'water of sprinkling', is the red-heifer mixture that removed corpse defilement. The related verb rhantizō appears in Hebrews 9:13, 19, 21 and 10:22 ('hearts sprinkled clean'). The New Testament's only other use of the noun is 1 Peter 1:2, 'for sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ'. At Sinai, Moses sprinkled the people with blood and said 'This is the blood of the covenant' (Exod 24:8, quoted in Heb 9:20).

Hebrews · 1

Hebrews 12:24 ῥαντισμοῦ of sprinkling

to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Here: 'Blood of sprinkling' is a Hebrew-style way of saying 'sprinkled blood'. It recalls the covenant-making at Sinai, where Moses sprinkled the people (Exod 24:8; Heb 9:19–20), the Day of Atonement sprinkling (Lev 16), and the cleansing 'water of sprinkling' (Num 19; Heb 9:13).

1 Peter · 1

1 Peter 1:2 ῥαντισμὸν sprinkling

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Here: A ritual term for sprinkling a cleansing or consecrating liquid. Paired with blood and obedience, it recalls Moses sprinkling covenant blood on Israel (Exodus 24:8), which marked them as God's covenant people.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.