Bible word study

Raq (Strong’s H7535): Meaning in the Bible

Raq (רַק) is the Hebrew word numbered H7535 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as properly, leanness, i.e. (figuratively) limitation; only adverbial, merely, or conjunctional, although. In the King James Bible it is translated but, even, except, howbeit howsoever, at the least.

• Original wordרַק
• Transliterationraq
• Pronunciationrak
• Part of speechadverb (adv)
• Strong’s numberH7535
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. the same as H7534 as a noun;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Raq appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Raq (H7535) stands behind 16 English renderings in 16 verses across 7 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Genesis (4), 1 Kings (4), 2 Chronicles (3).

How the King James Bible renders Raq, by count

• but2 of 16 (12 percent)
• so2 of 16 (12 percent)
• even1 of 16 (6 percent)
• except1 of 16 (6 percent)
• howbeit1 of 16 (6 percent)
• howsoever1 of 16 (6 percent)

Three places to read Raq

• Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
• Joshua 6:18 And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.
• 1 Kings 8:25 Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that thou promisedst him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked before me.

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 Raq 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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