Aramaic word · H7365
רְחַץ
hitrechitzu
to trust
To trust, rely on, put one's confidence in. The reflexive form here suggests leaning oneself on someone, committing oneself to them.
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
1) to trust
1a) (Hithp'il) to set one's trust on
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
To trust, rely on, put one's confidence in. The reflexive form here suggests leaning oneself on someone, committing oneself to them.
- Against the English
"Trusted in him" is right. What English can miss is that this is reliance shown by action: they walked into the fire with their weight on God. It is not a calm inner feeling or a confident forecast of the outcome.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Found only here in biblical Aramaic. The root is common in later Jewish Aramaic, where the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible) regularly use it for Hebrew bāṭaḥ, "to trust." It also appears in Syriac. It must not be confused with Hebrew rāḥaṣ, "to wash," which looks the same.
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
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Daniel 3:28 הִתְרְחִ֖צוּ they trusted
Nebuchadnezzar declared, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him. They violated the king’s command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.
Here: "They trusted / relied." The verb form is reflexive, as if "they leaned themselves" on him. The verb occurs only here in biblical Aramaic. It is unrelated to the identical-looking Hebrew word for "wash."
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.