Hebrew word · H7338
רַ֫חַב
rachav
breadth
Breadth, width, a broad expanse. Related words: rachav 'to be wide', merchav 'a wide place'. Used for physical space and, figuratively, for freedom, relief and safety.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.
What it means
breadth, broad or wide expanse
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
Breadth, width, a broad expanse. Related words: rachav 'to be wide', merchav 'a wide place'. Used for physical space and, figuratively, for freedom, relief and safety.
- Against the English
KJV, WEB, YLT 'a broad place', BSB 'a spacious and broad place', ESV 'a broad place', NIV 'a spacious place', NLT 'a place free from distress'. Most keep the picture. NLT drops it.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Ps 18:19 (18:20 Heb.) and 2 Sam 22:20, 'he brought me out into a broad place'. Ps 31:8 'you set my feet in a broad place'. Ps 118:5. Job 36:16 is one of the few places the noun rachav itself carries this rescue meaning.
Similar words
Where it appears
Job · 2
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Job 36:16 רַ֭חַב a broad place
Indeed, He drew you from the jaws of distress to a spacious and broad place, to a table full of richness.
Here: 'Breadth' or 'open space': the opposite of the tight place. In Hebrew poetry, room to move is a standard picture of rescue and relief.
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Job 38:18 רַחֲבֵי־ [the] broad spaces of
Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.