מִרְשַׁ֫עַת

From the study of 2 Chronicles 24:7

Range of meaning

A noun built on the root r-sh-ʿ ('be guilty, wicked', the opposite of 'righteous'). The m- prefix makes an abstract or concrete noun: 'wickedness', or 'a wicked thing/person'. Its form is feminine. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible.

Against the English

KJV, ESV and NIV have 'that wicked woman' and NASB 'the wicked Athaliah'. These are fair in substance, but they turn a noun into an adjective and add the word 'woman'. The Hebrew sets a noun beside her name, closer to 'Athaliah, the Wickedness' or 'Athaliah, that embodiment of wickedness'.

How it drifted

English has no natural way to stand an abstract noun next to a name as a title, so translators supply 'woman'. That makes the label sound like a comment on her gender. The Hebrew is about the moral and legal category: in Hebrew a rāshāʿ is someone found guilty before God and the covenant.

Used elsewhere in the period

BDB and HALOT both list it as 'wickedness', used here concretely of Athaliah. The root runs through the wisdom books and the Psalms ('the wicked' versus 'the righteous'). A similar image appears in Zechariah 5:8, where a woman in a basket is called 'Wickedness' (hārishʿâ, from the same root). The Septuagint renders it as ἡ ἄνομος, 'the lawless one'.