Hebrew word · H7502
רָפַד
ripadti
to spread
To spread out, lay out a bed (Job 17:13 "I spread my couch in darkness"). The related noun r'phidah means the support or back of a litter (Song 3:10). This intensified form appears only here.
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to spread
1a) (Qal) to spread
1b) (Piel) to spread out, support
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 Song of Songs 2:5
- Range of meaning
To spread out, lay out a bed (Job 17:13 "I spread my couch in darkness"). The related noun r'phidah means the support or back of a litter (Song 3:10). This intensified form appears only here.
- Against the English
KJV "comfort," which today sounds like emotional consolation. BSB, WEB and NIV have "refresh." YLT has "support." The physical picture of being cushioned or laid out on something mostly disappears.
- How it drifted
"Comfort" in 1611 still kept its Latin sense of "strengthen" (con + fortis, strong). Modern readers hear soothing words instead.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 17:13 (making up a bed). Job 41:30 (Hebrew 41:22), where the sea creature spreads itself out on the mud. Song 3:10 (the padded support of Solomon's carriage). The Greek Septuagint translates with stoibasate, "heap up, pile," which suggests an ancient reading close to "bed me down" or "pile around me."
Where it appears
Job · 2
Song of Songs · 1
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Song of Songs 2:5 רַפְּד֖וּנִי refresh me
Sustain me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.
Here: A second plural order that matches the first. The root means to spread out or make up a bed, and a related noun means the padded back of a couch (3:10). So the picture is "cushion me, bolster me." It is often translated "refresh me."
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.