רָגֵעַ

From the study of Psalm 35:20

Range of meaning

The adjective ragea' ('quiet, at rest') occurs only here. Related words: the verb raga' 'to be at rest, find repose' (Deut 28:65 'you will find no rest'; Jer 31:2 'when Israel sought rest'; Jer 50:34 the LORD will 'give rest to the land'); margoa' 'rest' (Jer 6:16 'rest for your souls'); marge'ah 'repose' (Isa 28:12). A root spelled the same way means 'to stir up' (the sea, Isa 51:15; Job 26:12), and rega' means 'a moment'. Lexicons such as HALOT separate these roots. The sense here is clearly the 'rest' root: people who live settled, peaceable, untroubled lives.

Against the English

English 'quiet' usually describes temperament: shy, silent, reserved. The Hebrew describes a way of living, not a personality. These are peaceable, unaggressive people who mind their own lives and threaten no one. That is why NLT says 'innocent people who mind their own business' and BSB says 'those who live quietly'.

How it drifted

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German Pietism took the phrase 'die Stillen im Lande' ('the quiet in the land') from this verse as a name for devout people withdrawn from public and worldly affairs. Since then the phrase has carried overtones of inward devotion and withdrawal from society that the Hebrew does not have.

Used elsewhere in the period

The adjective appears only here. Jer 50:34 pairs the related verb with 'the land' (God 'gives rest to the land'), which supports the reading 'those at rest in the land'. The Greek Septuagint seems to have taken the word differently, as 'anger' (ὀργή), perhaps by linking it to the 'stir up' root. Jerome's translation from the Hebrew follows the sense 'quiet'.