Aramaic or hebrew words?

[Paul Younan]

6. "Raca" again from a Hebrew word (See 1K22:16 where RQ means "nothing".)

"Nothing" is not an insult. And the word isn't RQ. It's Raqa, containing the Emphatic form used in Aramaic, but not in Hebew where it would be "Haraq."

This person obviously has no clue about the finer points of Semitic grammatical forms that can be used to identify common words from two languages as closely related as Aramaic and Hebrew are.

Hi again Paul , hope you are well. I got the following respomse to your thoughts on raqa.

Firstly, as a vocative there would be no article in Hebrew. Secondly final schwas in Hebrew weren't necessarily written, but Greek needs a nice clear vowel. The Peshitta Aramaic is written RQ'. Your transliteration is hokey.

Any thoughts?

Shlama Akhi Michael,

I can't believe this person.

The Greek records "Raqa", which is the Aramaic Emphatic. The Hebrew word is "Raq", as record in 1Kings 22:16. Notice it is in the Hebrew form, not the Aramaic Emphatic with the -a suffix.

That's the point, not how you transliterate it into Roman characters....whether RQA or RQ'....is irrelevant.

The Greek records the Aramaic Emphatic RQA, not the Hebrew RQ. Even the translators of the NIV have in the footnote - "An Aramaic word term of contempt."

Notice: Aramaic, not Hebrew. This is Semitics 101, the ability to distinguish between Hebrew and Aramaic Emphatic forms.

This person is a fool.