Hebrew word · H7465

רֹעָה

ro'ah

to shatter

Usually taken as a participle of the root רעע II, 'to break, shatter' (compare Ps 2:9, 'you shall break them with a rod of iron'; Job 34:24; Jer 15:12). A second root רעע I means 'be bad, evil'. Its adjective רָע / רָעָה ('bad') is spelled almost the same way.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(fem) broken

A grammatical form of ra.a (רָעַע "to shatter" H7489B)

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 Proverbs 25:19

Range of meaning

Usually taken as a participle of the root רעע II, 'to break, shatter' (compare Ps 2:9, 'you shall break them with a rod of iron'; Job 34:24; Jer 15:12). A second root רעע I means 'be bad, evil'. Its adjective רָע / רָעָה ('bad') is spelled almost the same way.

Against the English

BSB, KJV and NIV have 'broken tooth'. YLT, WEB, ESV and NASB have 'bad tooth'. These reflect the two possible roots.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Masoretic vowel pointing is unusual for either root. The Latin Vulgate has 'dens putridus' ('a rotten tooth'), which follows the 'bad' reading. The Greek translator read the line as 'the tooth of the wicked', also taking it from 'bad/evil'.

Where it appears

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 25:19 רֹ֭עָה broken

    Like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint is confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble.

    Here: A tooth that is cracked or crumbling. It looks like a tooth but gives way, sharply and painfully, the moment you bite down on it. The form is unusual, and some read it as 'bad' or 'rotten'. The picture is much the same either way.

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