Hebrew word · H7204

רֹאֶה

haro'eh

Haroeh

As an ordinary word, rōʾeh means 'one who sees, seer', the old term for a prophet (1 Sam 9:9). As a name here, it carries the article: 'the Seer'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 21, 2026

What it means

A man of the tribe of Judah living at the time of Divided Monarchy, first mentioned at 1Ch.2.52;

son of: Shobal (H7732H);

father of: Jahath (H3189); also called Reaiah at 1Ch.4.2;

Also named: re.a.yah (רְאָיָה "Reaiah" H7211I)

§ Haroeh = "vision"

a man of Judah

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: As an ordinary word, rōʾeh means 'one who sees, seer', the old term for a prophet (1 Sam 9:9). As a name here, it carries the article: 'the Seer'.
Against the English: Every major English version transliterates it as the name 'Haroeh'. That is reasonable, but it hides the likely link to 'Reaiah' in 4:2.
Used elsewhere in the period: 1 Chr 4:2 has 'Reaiah son of Shobal' in a parallel Judahite list. In Hebrew, רְאָיָה (Reaiah) and הָרֹאֶה (Haroeh) share most of their letters, so many commentators (e.g., Japhet, Knoppers, Klein) consider them the same name, one copied differently.

1 Chronicles · 1

1 Chronicles 2:52 הָרֹאֶ֖ה Haroeh

These were the descendants of Shobal the father of Kiriath-jearim: Haroeh, half the Manahathites,

Here: A personal or clan name. Read as an ordinary word it means 'the one who sees' (the same word as 'seer' in 1 Sam 9:9), but here it is a name. It probably stands for Reaiah, son of Shobal (1 Chr 4:2).

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