Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

râph⒠- רָפָא (Strong's #7496)
Shades'

The word רָפָא râph⒠(Strong's #7496, x8) actually only occurs in its plural form רְפָאִים r^ephâ’îym and is almost universally translated by the "dead" in the King James Bible, apart from one instance in Isaiah 26:14 where to vary the poetic parallelism with the more common word for death, מָוּת mâvôth (Strong's #4191, x835; used three times with רָפָא râphâ’: Psalm 88:10; Isaiah 26:14,19), "deceased" is used. Curiously, the New American Standard version only uses "dead" three times and prefers to interpret by "departed spirits of the dead" on five occasions. The word "shades" presumably comes from the 1917 Jewish Publication Society's consistent rendering of every occurrence by "shades", repeated by the 1947 Revised Standard Version.

The Jewish idea of shades comes from their underworld existence as "shadows of their former selves", without blood or breath or soul (נֶפֶשׁ nephesh), "weak" or "sick" (Isaiah 14:10). Paradoxically, the Hebrew root verb רָפָא râph⒠(Strong's #7495, x67) means "to heal, mend, pardon, comfort" although its primary syllable is also found in רָפָה râphâh (Strong's #7503, x46) "to let down, let go, be slack" and some of the idea of a "shade" may derive from this concept of a lazy, slack existence of one who has been "let down" into the world of the dead. Perhaps the word has the idea of those whose shadowy existence is one of awaiting "healing" and "mending". The Greek Septuagint actually translates two of the eight instances of רָפָא râph⒠by "healers" (Psalm 88:10; Isaiah 14:9).

The Catholic Douay-Rheims version renders the Hebrew word by "giants" in six of the eight verses (Job 26:5; Proverbs 9:18; 21:16; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14,19) based as it is upon the Latin Vulgate and its gigantas, followed also by Wycliffe's translation in 1395. Now a "giant" is clearly in contrast to idea of a weak "smaller" existence in Sheol but this probably stems from a confusion with the name of the Canaanite people the Rephaim/Rephaites (Genesis 14:5; 15:20; elsewhere translated by "giants", e.g., Deuteronomy 3:11; 2 Samuel 21:16).

It is a question of ongoing debate as to whether the dead shades have any consciousness in their shadowy state. Some verses suggest that the "dead cannot praise" or are without voice (Psalms 6:5; 30:9; 88:10-12 [using the word רָפָא râphâ’]; 94:17; 115:17) and that God is "not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). Isaiah 14:9-10 seems to suggest, however, that the rephaim shades can speak, but this may be purely metaphorical. Indeed, the Hebrew word רָפָא râph⒠only ever occurs in poetic literature from which we should be careful about extracting theological or physiological facts. Later in Isaiah (26:14) the prophet says that God has made "all their memory to perish", referring to dead shades as ones that will not rise, but he holds out the hope that the righteous dead "shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise" (v.19). It is possible that the shades of verse 14 are referring to the lords of verse 13 who may be thought of as pagan gods more than foreign taskmasters in which case false gods and idols do indeed not rise and like dumb statues, have no voice.

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