רֶ֫שֶׁף

From the study of Song of Songs 8:6

Range of meaning

Flame, burning heat, spark, a bolt of fire or lightning (Ps 78:48, of lightning striking flocks; Job 5:7, 'sons of rešep' = sparks flying upward). Also burning fever or plague (Deut 32:24; Hab 3:5). It was the name of Resheph, a well-known Canaanite and Syrian god of plague, war and fiery arrows.

Against the English

English 'flashes', 'sparks' or 'coals' (KJV) give a cosy hearth picture. The Hebrew word carried a sense of danger and burning power, with an echo of a feared divine archer.

How it drifted

English has no word that combines fire, lightning, fever and a divine name, so translators pick one physical sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

Resheph is attested in Ugaritic texts, Phoenician inscriptions and Egyptian sources. In Hab 3:5 'pestilence goes before him, and rešep follows at his feet' in a scene of God the warrior. Scholars debate how strongly a Hebrew hearer would think of the god (see DDD, 'Resheph').

From the study of Deuteronomy 32:24

Range of meaning

(1) Flame, spark, fiery bolt (Song 8:6, 'its flashes are flashes of fire'; Ps 76:3, 'the flashing arrows of the bow'); (2) lightning or fiery plague hitting livestock (Ps 78:48); (3) a burning disease such as fever or plague; (4) the proper name of the Canaanite god Resheph, a deity of plague, war and the underworld, often shown as an archer. Hab 3:5 sets Dever (pestilence) and Reshef marching before and behind YHWH like attendants. It is also an Israelite personal name (1 Chr 7:25).

Against the English

KJV 'burning heat' keeps the fire but loses the disease and the divine name. BSB, ESV and others ('pestilence', 'plague') keep the disease but lose the fire and the name. No English word can carry the flame, the fever and the archer god all at once.

How it drifted

Translators rightly avoid printing 'Resheph' as a god YHWH obeys. But a plain 'pestilence' hides the fact that ancient hearers knew the word as the name of a feared god.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ugarit: Resheph (ršp) is a major god. In the Kirta epic, part of the king's family is 'gathered in' by Resheph, meaning death by plague. Egypt: Reshep, an imported Levantine warrior god. Phoenician Cyprus: 'Resheph of the arrow' (ršp ḥṣ, Kition), and a bilingual inscription that equates Resheph with Apollo, the Greek god who shoots plague-arrows in Iliad 1. The Septuagint here reads 'birds' (cf. Job 5:7, 'sons of Resheph' fly upward), which shows the word was already hard to interpret.

From the study of Habakkuk 3:5

Range of meaning

As a common noun: flame, burning, and probably burning sickness or fever. Song of Songs 8:6 uses it of flames of fire. Deuteronomy 32:24 lists it among God's agents of destruction beside hunger, in a passage about his arrows. Psalm 76:3 (76:4 in Hebrew) speaks of the reshef of the bow, likely arrows flying like fire. Psalm 78:48 has it striking livestock, and Job 5:7 has the puzzling 'sons of reshef' flying upward. It is also a personal name in 1 Chronicles 7:25. Outside Israel it is the name of Resheph, a god of plague, war and the underworld.

Against the English

KJV 'burning coals' and YLT 'burning flame' follow the fire sense. BSB 'fever' takes the disease sense. Many others use 'plague' or 'pestilence' to match the first line. Each catches one part of the word, but no single English word can hold the burning, the sickness and the name of the god together. A few scholarly translations print a capitalised name to bring the last of these out.

How it drifted

No later meaning has crept in. The problem is loss: by the time of the English Bibles, the god had long been forgotten, and he was not rediscovered in detail until inscriptions and tablets were recovered from the 1800s onward. Translators before then could only work from the fire sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

Resheph is attested at Ebla in Syria in the third millennium BC and at Ugarit around 1200 BC, where a king's family is carried off in part by Resheph (KTU 1.14 I) and a god list equates him with the Mesopotamian plague and underworld god Nergal. New Kingdom Egypt depicts him as an armed warrior. Phoenician inscriptions name him at Karatepe in Turkey and in Cyprus, where he is 'of the arrow' and is equated with the Greek Apollo, himself the god who shoots plague at the army in Iliad book 1. Ancient translators struggled with the Hebrew word: the Septuagint uses birds at Deuteronomy 32:24 and a vulture's young at Job 5:7, and the Vulgate here uses 'the devil'.