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Bible Dictionaries
Head
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Nouns.
Rô'sh (רֹאשׁ, Strong's #7218), “head; top; first; sum.” Cognates of rô'sh appear in Ugaritic, Akkadian, Phoenician, biblical Aramaic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. Rô'sh and its alternate form re'sh appear about 596 times in biblical Hebrew.
This word often represents a “head,” a bodily part (Gen. 40:20). Rô'sh is also used of a decapitated “head” (2 Sam. 4:8), an animal “head” (Gen. 3:15), and a statue “head” (Dan. 2:32). In Dan. 7:9, where God is pictured in human form, His “head” is crowned with hair like pure wool (i.e., white).
To “lift up one’s own head” may be a sign of declaring one’s innocence: “If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction” (Job 10:15). This same figure of speech may indicate an intention to begin a war, the most violent form of selfassertion: “For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head” (Ps. 83:2). With a negation, this phrase may symbolize submission to another power: “Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more” (Judg. 8:28). Used transitively (i.e., to lift up someone else’s “head”), this word may connote restoring someone to a previous position: “Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place …” (Gen. 40:13). It can also denote the release of someone from prison: “… Evilmerodach king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison” (2 Kings 25:27).
With the verb rum (“to raise”), rô'sh can signify the victory and power of an enthroned king—God will “lift up [His] head,” or exert His rule (Ps. 110:7). When God lifts up (rum) one’s “head,” He fills one with hope and confidence: “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head” (Ps. 3:3).
There are many secondary nuances of rô'sh. First, the word can represent the “hair on one’s head”: “And on the seventh day, he shall shave all his hair off his rô'sh; he shall shave off his beard and his eyebrows, all his hair” (Lev. 14:9, RSV). The word can connote unity, representing every individual in a given group: “Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two …” (Judg. 5:30). This word may be used numerically, meaning the total number of persons or individuals in a group: “Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls” (Num. 1:2) Rô'sh can also emphasize the individual: “And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head [i.e., an individual donkey] was sold for fourscore pieces of silver …” (2 Kings 6:25). It is upon the “head” (upon the person himself) that curses and blessings fall: “The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors … : they shall be on the head of Joseph …” (Gen. 49:26).
Rô'sh sometimes means “leader,” whether appointed, elected, or self-appointed. The word can be used of the tribal fathers, who are the leaders of a group of people: “And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people …” (Exod. 18:25). Military leaders are also called “heads”: “These be the names of the mighty men whom David had: The Tachmonite that sat in the seat, chief among the captains …” (2 Sam. 23:8). In Num. 1:16, the princes are called “heads” (cf. Judg. 10:18). This word is used of those who represent or lead the people in worship (2 Kings 25:18—the chief priest).
When used of things, rô'sh means “point” or “beginning.” With a local emphasis, the word refers to the “top” or summit of a mountain or hill: “… Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand” (Exod. 17:9). Elsewhere the word represents the topmost end of a natural or constructed object: “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven …” (Gen. 11:4).
In Gen. 47:31, the word denotes the “head” of a bed, or where one lays his “head.” In 1 Kings 8:8, rô'sh refers to the ends of poles. The word may be used of the place where a journey begins: “Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way …” (Ezek. 16:25); cf. Dan. 7:1: “the sum of the matters.…” This sense of the place of beginning appears in Gen. 2:10 (the first occurrence): “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became [the source of four rivers].” This nuance identifies a thing as being placed spatially in front of a group; it stands in front or at the “head” (Deut. 20:9; cf. 1 Kings 21:9). The “head” of the stars is a star located at the zenith of the sky (Job 22:12). The “head” cornerstone occupies a place of primary importance. It is the stone by which all the other stones are measured; it is the chief cornerstone (Ps. 118:22). This word may have a temporal significance meaning “beginning” or “first.” The second sense is seen in Exod. 12:2: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.…” In 1 Chron. 16:7 the word describes the “first” in a whole series of acts: “Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.”
Rô'sh may also have an estimative connotation: “Take thou also unto thee [the finest of] spices …” (Exod. 30:23).
Rê'shı̂yth (רֵאשִׁית, Strong's #7225), “beginning; first; choicest.” The abstract word rê'shı̂yth corresponds to the temporal and estimative sense of ro’sh. Rê'shı̂yth connotes the “beginning” of a fixed period of time: “… The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year” (Deut. 11:12). The “beginning” of one’s period of life is intended in Job 42:12: “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.…” This word can represent a point of departure, as it does in Gen. 1:1 (the first occurrence): “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Estimatively, this word can mean the “first” or “choicest”: “The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God” (Exod. 23:19). This nuance of rê'shı̂yth may appear in the comparative sense, meaning “choicest” or “best.” Dan. 11:41 exhibits the nuance of “some”: “… But these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief [NASB, “foremost”] of the children of Ammon” (Dan. 11:41).
Used substantively, the word can mean “first fruits”: “As for the oblation of the first fruits, ye shall offer them unto the Lord: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savor” (Lev. 2:12). “… The first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee” (Num. 18:12). Sometimes this word represents the “first part” of an offering: “Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for a heave offering …” (Num. 15:20).
B. Adjective.
Ri'shôn (רִאשֹׁן, Strong's #7223), “first; foremost; preceding; former.” This word occurs about 182 times in biblical Hebrew. It denotes the “first” in a temporal sequence: “And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month …” (Gen. 8:13). In Ezra 9:2, ri'shôn is used both of precedence in time and of leadership: “… The holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.”
A second meaning of this adjective is “preceding” or “former”: “… Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first …” (Gen. 13:4). Gen. 33:2 uses this word locally: “And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost.” The “former ones” are “ancestors”: “But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen …” (Lev. 26:45). But in most cases, this adjective has a temporal emphasis.
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Head'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/h/head.html. 1940.
