Bible word study

Raah (Strong’s H7462): Meaning in the Bible

Raah (רָעָה) is the Hebrew word numbered H7462 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as to tend a flock; i.e. pasture it; intransitively, to graze (literally or figuratively); generally to rule; by extension, to associate with (as a friend). In the King James Bible it is translated companion, keep company with, devour, eat up, evil entreat.

• Original wordרָעָה
• Transliterationrâʻâh
• Pronunciationraw-aw'
• Part of speechverb (v)
• Strong’s numberH7462
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. a primitive root;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Raah appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Raah (H7462) stands behind 172 English renderings in 143 verses across 25 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Ezekiel (32), Jeremiah (27), Genesis (23).

How the King James Bible renders Raah, by count

• feed55 of 172 (32 percent)
• shepherds35 of 172 (20 percent)
• shepherd28 of 172 (16 percent)
• fed11 of 172 (6 percent)
• herdmen7 of 172 (4 percent)
• pastors7 of 172 (4 percent)

Three places to read Raah

• Genesis 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
• Psalms 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
• Jeremiah 33:12 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Raah in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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