Aramaic word · H7265

רְגַז

hargizu

to enrage

The root's basic picture is shaking or agitation. In Hebrew, rāgaz means to quake or tremble, from fear, grief or anger. In Aramaic it leans toward anger: Daniel 3:13 has Nebuchadnezzar 'in rage' (birgaz).

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears once in the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Aphel) to rage, enrage

Aramaic of ra.gaz (רָגַז "to tremble" H7264)

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

In depth

From the study of Ezra 5:12

Range of meaning

The root's basic picture is shaking or agitation. In Hebrew, rāgaz means to quake or tremble, from fear, grief or anger. In Aramaic it leans toward anger: Daniel 3:13 has Nebuchadnezzar 'in rage' (birgaz). The 'causing' form used here (Aramaic haphel) means to make someone tremble with anger, to provoke or enrage.

Against the English

KJV/WEB 'provoked … unto wrath' keeps the sense of causing. BSB/ESV/NIV 'angered' is accurate and plainer. Every English version gets the basic sense right. What matters is that the ancestors are the grammatical subject: they caused it.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hebrew uses the causing form of the same root for provoking God in Job 12:6 ('those who provoke God'). The usual Hebrew word in this kind of confession is hikʿîs, 'provoke to anger', which is everywhere in Kings and Jeremiah (e.g., 2 Kgs 21:15; 23:26; Jer 7:18–19; 32:29–32). The Aramaic verb here works as that formula's equivalent. Jeremiah 32:32 has the same pairing of 'provoked me' with the people's fathers, kings and priests.

Where it appears

Ezra · 1

  1. Ezra 5:12 הַרְגִּ֤זוּ they enraged

    But since our fathers angered the God of heaven, He delivered them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean who destroyed this temple and carried away the people to Babylon.

    Here: A 'causing' form of a root whose basic sense is to shake or tremble with agitation: 'they made (him) rage'. The ancestors are the active party. God's anger is a reaction they provoked by breaking faith, not a mood that came from nowhere.

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