# H7451 - ra **Strong's:** [H7451](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7451/) ยท BLB lookup **Pronunciation:** rah (noun form *ra'ah*, rah-AH) **Part of speech:** adjective ("bad") and noun ("evil, harm, calamity"); Strong's gathers the adjective *ra* and the noun *ra'ah* under this one number **Root:** the verb *ra'a'* (H7489, "to be bad, to do harm"), measured at 83 tags in 80 verses **OT occurrences:** measured in the Strong's-tagged KJV (`kjv.json`): **663 tags in 623 verses**. KJV renderings, counted by the English word carrying the tag, include: "evil" 434, "wickedness" 59, "wicked" 25, "hurt" 20, "mischief" 19, "bad" 13, "sore" 9, "trouble" 9, "evils" 8, "affliction" 5, "ill" 5 (as in "ill favoured"), "adversity" 3, "harm" 3, with scattered others ("sad", "grievous", "noisome", "sorrow", "naught"). ## Semantic range The word means **bad**, and it is as broad as the English word. Context decides whether the badness is moral, physical, emotional or circumstantial. 1. **Bad in quality, no moral content at all.** Pharaoh's seven "ill favoured" cows ([Genesis 41:3](/codex/genesis-41-3/)); a vowed animal "a good for a bad" ([Leviticus 27:10](/codex/leviticus-27-10/)); Jeremiah's basket of figs so bad they cannot be eaten ([Jeremiah 24:2-3](/codex/jeremiah-24-2-3/)); Jericho's water that "is naught" ([2 Kings 2:19](/codex/2-kings-2-19/)); Nehemiah's "sad" face ([Nehemiah 2:2](/codex/nehemiah-2-2/)). Cows, figs and water cannot sin. 2. **Harm, trouble, calamity, disaster.** What happens *to* someone: "adversity", "affliction", "hurt", "trouble". This is the sense of judgment texts, where God sends *ra'ah* on a city or a house. 3. **Moral evil, wickedness.** What someone *does*: "the wickedness of man was great in the earth" ([Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/)), "to do evil in his sight" ([2 Samuel 12:9](/codex/2-samuel-12-9/)). The opposite is *tov* ([H2896 - tov](/codex/h2896-tov/), "good"), with the same breadth. In the phrase "good and evil" the pair can mean the whole range of benefit and harm, not only right and wrong. ## One word, two senses, one verse The strongest evidence that *ra* does not always mean moral evil is that Scripture uses it in **both** senses side by side, of man and of God, in the same sentence: - **[Jeremiah 18:8](/codex/jeremiah-18-8/)**: "If that nation ... turn from their evil (*ra'ah*), I will repent of the evil (*ra'ah*) that I thought to do unto them." The nation's *ra'ah* is its wickedness; God's *ra'ah* is the disaster He had announced. Same word, measured twice in the verse. - **[Jonah 3:10](/codex/jonah-3-10/)**: Nineveh "turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them." - **[Genesis 50:20](/codex/genesis-50-20/)**: "ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good." The brothers' *ra'ah* is malice; God turns the same event to *tov*. Anyone who reads every *ra* as "moral wickedness" has to say that in [Jeremiah 18:8](/codex/jeremiah-18-8/) God promises to stop sinning if Israel stops sinning. The text plainly means something else, and the reader who notices it has refuted the equivocation. ## Theological force ### God sends *ra'ah*; God does not do wickedness - **[Isaiah 45:7](/codex/isaiah-45-7/)**: "I make peace, and create evil." The pairing with *shalom* (peace, well-being) fixes the sense: the opposite of *shalom* is disaster, not sin. See [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/). - **[Amos 3:6](/codex/amos-3-6/)**: "shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" The line before is a war trumpet; the evil is the disaster the trumpet announces. - **[Lamentations 3:38](/codex/lamentations-3-38/)**: "Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?", said over Jerusalem's ruin. - **[Job 2:10](/codex/job-2-10/)**: "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?", of Job's losses and sores. - **[2 Samuel 12:11](/codex/2-samuel-12-11/)**: "I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house", the judgment on David's house for his adultery and murder. See [Did God Cause the Rape of Davids Wives Objection Defeater](/codex/did-god-cause-the-rape-of-davids-wives-objection-defeater/). In every one of these the *ra'ah* is **judicial or providential calamity**, and several are explicitly punishment for moral *ra* done by people (David's "evil in his sight", [2 Samuel 12:9](/codex/2-samuel-12-9/); Nineveh's "evil way", [Jonah 3:10](/codex/jonah-3-10/)). The Bible's own logic is: people do *ra* (wickedness); God answers with *ra'ah* (disaster). Scripture never says God does wickedness; it says the opposite of the Judge ([Habakkuk 1:13](/codex/habakkuk-1-13/), "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil"). ### "Repenting of the evil" Because *ra'ah* can mean announced disaster, God can "repent of the evil" ([Jonah 3:10](/codex/jonah-3-10/); 4:2; [Jeremiah 18:8](/codex/jeremiah-18-8/)) without any suggestion that He had been planning a sin. Jonah even lists it as one of God's attributes: "gracious ... merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil" ([Jonah 4:2](/codex/jonah-4-2/)). The verb there is *nacham* ([H5162 - nacham](/codex/h5162-nacham/)). ## Apologetic load The standard objection is an **equivocation** (see [Equivocation](/codex/equivocation/)): | Step | Content | |---|---| | Contested term | *ra*, "evil" | | Sense A | moral wickedness, sin, what an agent does wrongly | | Sense B | harm, trouble, disaster, what befalls someone | | The objection needs | Sense A: "God says He creates moral evil" | | The texts use | Sense B, fixed by *shalom* (Isaiah 45:7), the war trumpet (Amos 3:6), the ruin of Jerusalem (Lamentations 3:38), the judgment on David (2 Samuel 12:11) | The honest concession: this does not make these texts soft. God really says "I will", and the calamity is real suffering. The remaining question, whether each judgment was just, is a different argument from "God is the author of sin", and the objector owes it separately. See [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/) and [Divine Sovereignty](/codex/divine-sovereignty/). ## Notable verses - [Genesis 2:9](/codex/genesis-2-9/), [2:17](/codex/genesis-2-17/), "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" - [Genesis 41:3](/codex/genesis-41-3/), "ill favoured" cows (non-moral) - [Genesis 50:20](/codex/genesis-50-20/), "ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good" - [2 Samuel 12:11](/codex/2-samuel-12-11/), "I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house" - [Job 2:10](/codex/job-2-10/), "shall we not receive evil?" - [Isaiah 45:7](/codex/isaiah-45-7/), "I make peace, and create evil" - [Jeremiah 18:8](/codex/jeremiah-18-8/), both senses in one verse - [Lamentations 3:38](/codex/lamentations-3-38/), "evil and good" from the mouth of the Most High - [Amos 3:6](/codex/amos-3-6/), "shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" - [Jonah 3:10](/codex/jonah-3-10/), "God repented of the evil" ## See also ### Lexicon - [H2896 - tov](/codex/h2896-tov/), good, the opposite pole with the same breadth - [H7965 - shalom](/codex/h7965-shalom/), peace, the pairing that fixes [Isaiah 45:7](/codex/isaiah-45-7/) - [H5162 - nacham](/codex/h5162-nacham/), God "repents" of the announced *ra'ah* ### Concepts and defeaters - [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/), the full treatment of the verse - [Did God Cause the Rape of Davids Wives Objection Defeater](/codex/did-god-cause-the-rape-of-davids-wives-objection-defeater/), the *ra'ah* of [2 Samuel 12:11](/codex/2-samuel-12-11/) - [Divine Sovereignty](/codex/divine-sovereignty/), sovereignty over calamity without authoring sin - [Privation](/codex/privation/), moral evil as a lack, not a created substance - [Equivocation](/codex/equivocation/)