the First Week of Lent
Click here to learn more!
Bible Dictionaries
Far
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Râchaq (רָחַק, Strong's #7368), “far.” A common Semitic term, this word was known in ancient Akkadian and Ugaritic long before the Hebrew of the Old Testament. Râchaq is a common word in modern Hebrew as well. The word is used about 55 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and it occurs for the first time in Gen. 21:16.
Râchaq is used to express “distance” of various types. It may be “distance” from a place (Deut. 12:21), as when Job felt that his friends kept themselves “aloof” from him (Job 30:10). Sometimes the word expresses “absence” altogether: “… The comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me …” (Lam. 1:16). “To be distant” was also “to abstain”: “Keep thee far from a false matter” (Exod. 23:7).
Sometimes râchaq implies the idea of “exile”: “… The Lord [removes] men far away” (Isa. 6:12). “To make the ends of the land distant” is “to extend the boundaries”: “… thou hast increased the [borders of the land]” (Isa. 26:15).
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Far'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/f/far.html. 1940.
