Hebrew word · H7305
רֶ֫וַח
revach
space
'Space, room, interval'. From a root meaning 'to be wide, roomy', and so 'to have relief'. The related verb is used when Saul 'was relieved' as David played (1 Sam 16:23) and when Elihu says 'let me speak, that I may find relief' (Job 32:20). The noun occurs only here and in Genesis 32:16 (Hebrew v.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) space
1a) space, interval
1b) respite, relief
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
- Range of meaning
'Space, room, interval'. From a root meaning 'to be wide, roomy', and so 'to have relief'. The related verb is used when Saul 'was relieved' as David played (1 Sam 16:23) and when Elihu says 'let me speak, that I may find relief' (Job 32:20). The noun occurs only here and in Genesis 32:16 (Hebrew v. 17), where Jacob puts 'space' between his herds.
- Against the English
BSB, NIV and ESV say 'relief'. KJV says 'enlargement', which meant release from a tight place but now sounds like growth or expansion. YLT's 'respite' (a breathing space) is close.
- How it drifted
KJV's 'enlargement' (1611) meant being freed from confinement. Modern readers hear increase or expansion.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Hebrew often pictures distress as narrowness (tsar, tsarah: 'tight, distress') and rescue as open space (merḥav, Ps 18:19; 118:5). Rewaḥ belongs to the same picture. It is paired here with haṣṣālâ, 'rescue', a noun found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible but built on the very common verb natsal, 'to snatch away, rescue'.
Where it appears
Genesis · 1
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Genesis 32:16 וְרֶ֣וַח and a space
He entrusted them to his servants in separate herds and told them, “Go on ahead of me, and keep some distance between the herds.”
Esther · 1
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Esther 4:14 רֶ֣וַח relief
For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Here: Literally 'room, space between': breathing room for a people being squeezed toward death. Rare word; elsewhere only in Genesis 32:16 (Hebrew v. 17), for the space between Jacob's herds.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.